Almost Midnight
By Brandon D. Ray
DATE: Sat, 09 Jan 1999
DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Anywhere and everywhere, so long as my name
stays on it and no money changes hands.
SPOILER WARNING: Numerous spoilers all the way through Season 6.
RATING: PG-13, for language.
CONTENT WARNING: Bad words.
CLASSIFICATION: XRA; MulderAngst and TaraAngst; M/S friendship;
Mulder/Tara friendship; Bill,jr/Tara romance
SUMMARY: Fox Mulder and Tara Scully team up to solve a mutual problem,
and find themselves swept up in an X-File.
Another in the Bill Scully series, the previous entries being
"Insurmountable Opportunities" and "Seven Days in November". I don't
think you need to have read the previous stories to "get" this one,
although there are bits that would probably make a little more sense if
you had. I guess the one thing you SHOULD know, if you haven't read the
first two stories, is that Mulder and Bill, jr, have pretty much buried
the hatchet. They aren't exactly drinking buddies, but they get along.
NOTE: I have stolen the title for this story from a novel by Martin
Caidin. It was...less than wonderful, and this story really has nothing
to do with Caidin's (although it has a vaguely similar theme). But the
title was cool, and so I have liberated it.
DISCLAIMER: In my dreams....
DEDICATIONS: To Nonie, for tireless beta tests. To Rachel, for
nagging. And to the two Kristens for help with the San Diego locale.
Of course, any flaws herein are my responsibility.
Almost Midnight
by Brandon D. Ray
Fox Mulder's Apartment, Alexandria, VA
December 25, 11:58 p.m.
It was dark and the phone was ringing.
Fox Mulder struggled groggily to wakefulness, trying to sort out what
was real from the dream he'd been having. The phone ringing for the
third time helped orient him, and he clumsily reached out and grabbed
the receiver before the answering machine could pick it up.
"Mulder," he mumbled.
There was silence on the other end; then he thought he heard someone
breathing.
"Hello?" he said, more sharply. "Is someone there?"
"Fox." It was a woman's voice, very faint.
Who the hell? There were only a handful of people who might call him at
this time of night, and only one or two of them would call him by his
first name. His eyes flicked over to the Caller I.D. box, and his
photographic memory identified the number instantly.
"Tara?" he said.
"Oh, Fox," she said, and this time he detected a tremor in her voice.
"Tara, what's wrong?"
There was another silence, and he thought he heard a choked sob. "Fox,
I need your help. I don't know who else to turn to. The police say
they can't do anything, and the Shore Patrol --"
"Tara!" he repeated sharply. "What's wrong? What's going on?"
There was another silence, longer than the others, and when she finally
spoke again, he could barely hear her. "Bill is missing. And so is
Dana."
# # #
Ten minutes later Mulder hung up the phone. He'd spent five of those
minutes calming her down, and another five gleaning from her what little
information she had. Scully had been visiting her brother and his
family for Christmas -- that much Mulder already knew. On the evening
of the 23rd she and Bill had gone out in search of eggnog. They had not
returned.
Tara had, of course, notified the appropriate authorities: The San
Diego Police and the Shore Patrol. Neither agency had been able to find
Dana or her brother. Not a clue, not a lead, nothing. To all
appearances brother and sister had climbed into his car, pulled out of
the driveway, and vanished without a trace.
But Fox Mulder had been living in the shadows for a long time, and one
thing he knew with certainty: Nothing vanishes without a trace.
Now he started dialing airline ticket reservation offices. Twenty weary
minutes later his initial suspicion was confirmed: There was not a
single seat available on any flight from Washington to California until
after the first of the year. Which was, of course, totally
unacceptable.
Next he called Skinner. The phone was answered on the sixth ring.
"Hello?" His former supervisor's voice was foggy with sleep.
"This is Mulder. I need your help."
"Wha --? Mulder?" A pause. "I'm not supposed to be talking to you."
Another pause. "Do you know what time it is?"
"Scully's missing." He didn't say "again". He didn't have to. "So's
her brother Bill."
Another pause, very brief. Then: "What can I do?"
"I need a civilian air transport priority for Delta Flight 1109,
departing from Dulles at 5:30 this morning, with a connection in Atlanta
with Delta 423, non-stop to San Diego."
A faint rustling sound. "Okay, got it. Anything else?"
"I also need to assert federal jurisdiction, with myself as SAC."
"Jurisdiction shouldn't be a problem," Skinner replied. "Scully is a
federal agent, and her brother's in the Navy, right?"
"That's right."
Skinner continued, "But the San Diego SAC may have some problems with an
outsider --"
"Fuck the San Diego office," Mulder said flatly. "If they were doing
their jobs, instead of sitting around with their thumbs up their
collective asses, maybe this kind of thing wouldn't happen." He was
being irrational, and he knew it, but there was no one else to take his
anger out on.
There was another moment of silence. Finally, Skinner said, "I'll see
what I can do, Mulder." He hesitated. "Have you spoken to Kersh?"
Kersh. The new A.D. Mulder hadn't even considered calling the man; he
didn't really know him, and he certainly didn't trust him. "No."
He could almost hear Skinner nodding to himself. "All right. All
right, I guess I understand. I'll do my best to expedite things for
you; with luck your authority should be waiting for you by the time you
arrive in San Diego. Anything else?"
"Not for now."
"Keep in touch, Mulder. I'll do anything I can to help; you know that."
"I know." And he punched the disconnect button savagely.
One more call to make. This time the phone was answered promptly, and
the voice at the other end sounded as alert as it ever did.
"Frohike," Mulder said. "Turn off the tape."
After the briefest of hesitations: "Done."
"I need some research done, and I need it fast. I need you to get me
everything you can find on a missing persons case. The information will
be in the files of the San Diego Police Department and wherever the hell
the local headquarters of the Navy Shore Patrol is located in that
area. The subjects are Bill and Dana Scully."
A shocked silence. "Jesus. I'll get right on it."
"Whatever you find, send it to me on the net. My private account; not
the FBI one. I'm flying out of Dulles at 5:30, and expect to be in San
Diego by 12:30 or so Washington time. If you can start feeding me
information before then, I can study the files on the plane and hit the
ground running as soon as I arrive." He hit disconnect without waiting
for a response.
Mulder rose from the sofa and moved rapidly to his bedroom. Owing to
the nature of his job, he always kept a suitcase packed and ready to
go. All he had to do was add a few toilet items, and his Sig Sauer.
The entire process took less than ten minutes, leaving him with far too
much time to kill before he had to leave for the airport. He considered
finding something to eat, but his stomach rebelled at the very idea. He
considered pouring himself a drink to calm his nerves, but he was afraid
that once he started drinking he wouldn't be able to stop. Finally, he
sat down on the sofa again to wait.
# # #
Dulles International Airport
December 26, 5:14 a.m.
The airport was crowded, even at five in the morning. Mulder knew he
should have expected that, given the impossibility of making a
reservation without using government muscle, but he hadn't really
thought about it, and the reality of the bright lights, the incessant
Christmas music on the overhead speakers, and the jostling, happy crowds
of travelers came as something of a shock. For the past five hours he'd
been living in a world even darker than the one he usually inhabited,
and finding himself suddenly in a bubble of holiday cheer was hard to
cope with.
At first he had dealt with it by ignoring it, and concentrating on the
mundane tasks of procuring his boarding pass, getting his gun past
airport security, and making a belated phone call to Tara to let her
know he was on his way and when to expect him. But that had taken only
so long, and now he was sitting in the waiting area of his assigned
gate, trying not to think too much.
God, he was tired; he was exhausted. He knew he should have slept; he'd
only been asleep for a couple of hours when Tara's phone call came, and
the only thing he was certain of was that the day ahead was going to be
a long one. But just as his stomach had refused to entertain the idea
of food, so his mind had refused to embrace the concept of sleep. He'd
alternated sitting on the sofa not watching the television, and pacing
restlessly through his apartment. He'd thought about going running as a
means of diversion, but shied away from it, not wanting to leave the
shelter of his apartment until he absolutely had to. Not wanting to
acknowledge that there was a world out there, and that he had to deal
with it somehow.
<>
He had finally gotten past the guilt he used to feel when something
happened to her. After Antarctica, it had at last seeped down into his
soul that she was there with him because she wanted to be, because she
had as much invested in this quest as he did. He had known that with
the top of his mind for a long time, but it had really only been lip
service; his heart had not been in it. She had known that, and deep
down he had known it, and hated himself for not giving her the respect
she needed and deserved, but they had seldom spoken of it, because those
conversations always ended so badly.
But somehow, out there on the ice fields, holding each other as they
waited to die and watched an indisputably alien spaceship rising into
the sky, the knowledge had finally trickled down to the small, dark
place where Fox Mulder really lived. At that moment, as he finally
acknowledged in his heart that she was a free and independent adult, he
had also realized that the one who had really been imprisoned by his
obtuseness had been not his partner, but himself, and that now, finally,
he was setting himself free.
Somehow they had struggled out of that experience alive, and they had
both emerged the stronger for it, as well as infinitely closer. But
still they hadn't spoken of it. Both of them had recognized the change,
but by its very nature it hadn't seemed necessary to say anything.
He had thought for awhile that they might become lovers, but that hadn't
happened either, and after awhile that seemed right, too. They were
closer than lovers, and Mulder had come to realize that adding sex to
the equation would be...wrong, somehow. Not morally wrong, but wrong in
the only way that mattered: It would be wrong for them. As he had
remarked to her just last month, at the height of another case which
neither of them had expected to survive, "We don't need that, Scully.
That's not us. That's not real. If we did that, we would not be who we
are." And she had agreed.
None of this, of course, made it hurt any less, now that she was missing
again. But unlike so many occasions in the past, this time it was a
clean hurt.
Finally they called his flight, and he was able to stop thinking again
for awhile.
# # #
Somewhere over Arizona
December 26, 8:59 a.m., Pacific Standard Time
The trip from Washington to San Diego was the longest seven hours of Fox
Mulder's life.
First had been the comparatively short hop to Atlanta; then an
excruciating 55 minute wait for the connecting flight. Finally they
were in the air, headed west, but still time seemed to drag, and the
fact that he was seated next to a young couple bubbling over with love
hadn't helped matters at all.
As soon as they were airborne he'd opened his laptop and logged onto his
ISP, but there was nothing there from Frohike, which meant that there
was nothing there of importance. He'd spent the next three hours
disciplining himself to only check his email once every quarter hour,
which required almost all the self-control he had, and also left him
with more then fourteen and a half minutes out of every fifteen with
nothing to occupy his mind.
Now, finally, there was the message icon blinking in the upper left hand
corner. With a sigh of relief Mulder clicked on the icon and waited for
the message to appear.
Two minutes later he slammed the laptop shut in disgust. Nothing.
Nothing nothing nothing. Frohike had been apologetic almost to the
point of obsequiousness, but the fact remained that he'd found nothing
that Tara hadn't already told Mulder over the phone the night before.
The San Diego Police Department's records showed only a routine missing
persons investigation: No clues, no evidence, no leads. Dead end. And
the Shore Patrol didn't even have that much; from the information
available on their intranet, they were barely interested.
Thank god he was almost to San Diego, so he could start a real
investigation.
# # #
San Diego International Airport
December 26, 9:48 a.m.
The San Diego airport was just as crowded and just as overflowing with
holiday cheer as Dulles and Atlanta had been. Grimly, Mulder pushed his
way through the crowds, his eyes searching for Tara.
In the back of his mind he wondered how she would receive him. The last
time he'd come to San Diego he had not been at all welcome in Bill
Scully's home, and he had left as soon as possible. True, things had
thawed a bit between himself and Bill in the last few months, but he had
no way of knowing how much of that Bill had shared with Tara.
<> he reminded himself. <> But
at the very least that indicated a willingness to work with him on their
mutual problem, and that was good enough. It wasn't necessary that they
like each other, as long as they had a common interest.
Not that it really mattered very much one way or the other; Mulder was
here to find Scully, and nothing, but nothing, was going to prevent that
from happening. Tara's cooperation would make things a little easier,
by giving him a base of operations and perhaps an entre to officials at
the Shore Patrol, but he didn't imagine she would make much real
difference.
He found Tara waiting just outside the security checkpoint, hands in her
coat pockets, staring off into space. Elbowing his way past an
overweight businessman, Mulder walked up and stood in front of her, but
she didn't stir.
"Tara?" Still nothing. More sharply: "Tara!"
She shook her head, and then she was seeing him. "Fox," she said, very
faintly.
"Tara...are you okay?"
Her features firmed up and she shook her head again. "That was a damned
stupid question, Fox."
He sucked in his breath, then nodded slightly. "Sorry."
"That's okay. I guess I was kind of out of it for a minute. Do you
have any luggage?"
"No," he replied, hefting his carry-on. "I try to travel light."
"Then let's get going."
A few moments later Tara was popping the trunk on a late model Saturn
and stepping aside to watch in silence as Mulder dropped his carry-on
into the compartment. Leaning over so that his body would conceal his
actions from casual passersby, he removed his Sig Sauer and holster from
the bag, withdrew an ammunition clip from the outside zippered pocked,
and finally clipped the whole assemblage to the right side of his belt.
"Was that supposed to impress me?"
He turned to look at Tara, and raised his eyebrows. She was standing a
few feet back with her arms folded across her chest and a cold look on
her face. "Was what supposed to impress you?"
She waved a hand at him. "The whole routine with the gun."
Mulder shook his head. "No. I always carry a weapon when I'm on an
assignment."
She looked at him for just a moment, then some of the tension seemed to
go out of her and she nodded and sighed. "Sorry, Fox. It's been a
tough couple of days." She smiled briefly, but only with her mouth, and
then moved towards the driver's side of the car. "I guess we're even
now."
"Sure."
The drive to her home passed in silence. Mulder sat in the passenger
seat, staring out the window, trying not to think about Scully, and the
most obvious distraction was the woman sitting next to him.
He really didn't know Tara Scully at all well. He'd met her only once,
when he had come to San Diego the previous Christmas. She hadn't made
much of an impression on him then; he'd been focusing all of his
attention on his partner, and Bill had seemed to be just as happy to
have Mulder keep his distance from Tara in any case. A few days after
he'd arrived, she'd gone into labor and had her baby, and that had ended
what little contact he'd had with her.
The bottom line was that Tara was an enigma to him. He'd tried not to
tar her with his negative emotions towards her husband, but past a
certain point he couldn't help himself. The fact that he'd finally
gotten to know Bill a little better in the last few months had helped,
but he still had more than a little residual unease towards her.
He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn't even notice that he'd
drifted off to sleep.
# # #
Residence of Bill and Tara Scully
Miramar Naval Air Station, San Diego, CA
December 26, 4:02 p.m.
Someone was shaking his shoulder.
"Fox, wake up."
He stirred groggily, and pulled the blanket up a little higher.
"Fox! Wake up!"
A momentary pause, then a rustling noise, and suddenly the room was
flooded with light. With a groan, Mulder rolled onto his back and
opened his eyes, and tried to remember where he was. He didn't
recognize the room, so he must be in the field, working on a case.
There'd been a dream...a nightmare. Scully had been taken again --
Scully. He sat bolt upright and squinted at the figure silhouetted
against the window. As he watched, the figure moved closer, and then he
recognized her. Tara Scully.
Shit. It wasn't a dream. But it was a nightmare.
He shook his head and ran the fingers of one hand through his hair.
"How -- how long have I been asleep?"
Now she was standing next to the bed. "About six hours. You fell
asleep in the car on the way from the airport."
He nodded slowly. The last thing he remembered was staring out the car
window at the light Saturday morning traffic. He'd been thinking about
something....something.... He shook his head in frustration; he just
couldn't remember. "I was really out of it," he admitted.
"I'd say so. I had a hell of a time getting you into the house. One of
the neighbors, Tom Christopher, finally came over and helped me." Her
lips quirked in annoyance. "He seemed to think it was a little odd for
me to be bringing a strange man into the house when Bill wasn't around.
But I told him you're with Dana, and I think he believed me."
Mulder stared at her for a moment, then shook his head again. "Great,"
he muttered. "That's all I need."
Tara raised her eyebrows. "Aren't you? I thought --"
"No," he replied, cutting her off. "No, we're not." He threw back the
blankets and swung his feet out of bed. He was still wearing his slacks
and undershirt from the morning, and after a quick glance around the
room he spotted his bag sitting on top of the bureau. His weapon, still
in its holster, was laying next to it. He padded over and picked up the
bag.
"Fox?" He turned to look at her. She was still standing by the bed,
but now she wore a look of acute embarrassment. "Fox, I'm sorry. I
didn't mean --"
"It's all right, Tara," he said, more sharply than he'd intended.
"People make that mistake all the time."
They stood looking at each other for just a moment longer, then she
seemed to notice that he was half-dressed and holding his overnight
bag. "I'll leave you be, then," she said awkwardly. "Go ahead and
change, or whatever, and I'll try to put together some sandwiches or
something. I'm sure you must be hungry. I'm starving; I haven't eaten
since last night."
He nodded. "Okay."
She walked over to the door and pulled it open, then paused for just a
moment, and turned to look at him over her shoulder.
"It's okay, Tara," he said softly. "Really."
She nodded once, and turned and left the room.
# # #
Mulder came downstairs a few minutes later to find Tara in the kitchen,
mixing something in a bowl.
He felt a little more human, having changed to jeans and a polo shirt
after taking a minute to splash some water on his face in the bathroom.
"Tuna salad," Tara said in answer to his inquiring gaze. "I hope that's
okay. Normally I'd have leftovers coming out of my ears today, but
I...I didn't feel much like cooking yesterday."
"Sure," he answered. "Tuna salad is fine. Can I do anything to help?"
She shook her head. "No. I'm just about done. Why don't you grab a
couple of beers, or whatever you'd like, and go on out and sit down.
I'll be out in just a moment."
Mulder nodded and crossed to the refrigerator, pulling the door open and
bending down slightly to examine its contents. A half gallon of milk,
still mostly full; orange juice; miscellaneous jars of jelly, salsa and
so forth. A couple of jars of partly eaten baby food.
And a six pack of Rolling Rock, with one bottle missing.
He stood very still, trying to control his breathing, while at the same
time cursing himself for his weakness. Dammit, if every single little
thing that reminded him of Scully was going to set him off like this, he
was going to be no good to anyone. He had to get better control of
himself. He had to. For her sake, as well as Bill's.
"Fox? Are you okay?"
Somehow Tara's question broke the tension he was feeling, and he was
able to chuckle. Grabbing two bottles of beer, he shut the refrigerator
door and turned to face her, a slight smile on his face. "That was a
damned stupid question, Tara," he said, hoping she'd pick up on his
amusement.
She flushed and looked away. "I -- I'm sorry, Fox. That was
thoughtless." She took a breath and looked back at him. "I'm sorry."
Mulder shook his head, and took a step towards her. "No, Tara. It's
okay. It was funny."
She stared at him for just a moment, then looked down into her bowl and
resumed mixing. "No it wasn't."
Mulder stood looking at her for just a moment, waiting to see if she
would add anything. Finally, he shrugged and walked out of the room.
# # #
5:14 p.m.
The meal passed quickly and in silence, with Mulder and Tara sitting
across from each other at a dining room table that seemed far too
large. Mulder tried to concentrate on his beer and sandwich, doing his
best to ignore the ghosts in the apparently empty chairs.
After they'd finished eating they continued to sit quietly for a few
minutes, looking at everything except each other. Finally, Mulder broke
the silence.
"Tara, we have to talk. I have to know what happened. All the
details."
She nodded reluctantly. "I know. I don't want to, but I know it has to
be done." She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. "Just
let me clear the dishes. I'll be right back."
A few moments later she was seated across from him again, her expression
wary, and perhaps just a little angry. As gently as he could: "Tara, I
really am sorry. I know how hard this is, and I know you probably
already went over this with the police."
"You got that one right," she said flatly. Her voice deepened in an
exaggerated mimicry of Joe Friday. "'When was the last time you saw
your husband Mrs. Scully? What was he wearing Mrs. Scully? What sort
of car was he driving? What color?'" She drew in a deep breath and
continued, and now the anger was in her voice as well as on her face.
"'Was he having problems at work Mrs. Scully? Was he having problems at
home Mrs. Scully? Are you sure it was his sister he left with Mrs.
Scully? Can we see his address book Mrs. Scully? Who is this woman
listed under the R's Mrs. Scully?'" She slammed her hand down on the
table. "Fucking cops! Fucking sons of bitches! Whose side are they
on, anyway? They don't know anything about him!!" She blinked angrily,
and wiped her forearm across her eyes.
Mulder flinched slightly at hearing that sort of language coming from
her. He opened his mouth to respond, but she must have seen the
expression on his face, because now she turned her anger on him.
"What's the matter, Fox? Didn't think I had it in me? You thought I
was just some sweet little housewife, and never let a bad word cross my
lips? Well you can fucking well think again!" And she folded her arms
across her chest and glared at him defiantly.
Mulder felt his own anger flare, and he looked down at his hands,
clenched tightly together on the table in front of him. He took a deep
breath and tried to control his breathing. Scully. Focus on Scully.
This was for her, and he had to stay focused; he couldn't afford to lose
his temper, as tempting as that might be. Besides, Tara wasn't really
angry at him; he was just the most convenient target at the moment.
Suddenly he could almost hear Scully's voice in his ear: "Not
everything's about you, Mulder."
He shuddered. That had been one of the bad times. But that was a long
time ago, and it was over. Now Scully was missing, and he had to find
her.
He had to find her. Failure was not an option.
He looked back up at Tara, his features calm and composed. He locked
eyes with her, and in measured, deliberate tones he said, "Okay, Tara.
Let's take those questions one at a time."
She continued to glare at him for just a moment longer; finally her
shoulders sagged in acceptance. "Sorry, Fox," she said, very softly.
Then she straightened up and looked him in the eye again, and this time
he saw determination rather than anger. "Let's get it over with."
They were about three quarters of the way through the interview when
Mulder realized she was holding something back. He wasn't sure what it
was, but from the set of her shoulders and the tone of her voice, he
knew that she was hiding something. The very idea that she would try to
conceal something infuriated him, but he had conducted too many
investigations for it to come as a complete surprise. People often
shaded the truth in these situations, at the very least. Unfortunately,
this time he was personally involved, and that was making it difficult
for him to maintain his own objectivity.
"What is it, Tara?" he asked abruptly, a little more roughly than he had
intended.
She blinked, and shook her head. "What is what?"
"What is it that you aren't telling me?"
She stared at him for just a moment. Then: "Nothing. There's
nothing...." Her voice trailed off, and if Mulder hadn't been sure
before, he was now.
Again he felt the anger rise in his chest. He needed this information;
he needed everything. He knew it was hard on her, but he'd thought she
had understood the importance of this. Now it was his turn to slam his
hand down on the table, and he glared at her as he did so. "Dammit,
Tara, don't lie to me!"
The words hung between them in the air for a timeless interval.
Finally, she looked back up at him, and once again fury flashed in her
eyes. "You son of a bitch!" Her voice was cold. "You bastard! You
think you have to know everything? Fine; I'll tell you." She stood up
and leaned across the table at him, her hands pressed flat on its
hardwood surface. "Bill and I had a fight, okay? A nice little lovers'
quarrel. Is that what you wanted to know?"
As quickly as it had come, Mulder's own anger was gone, and he nodded
slowly. It felt right. He even thought he knew why she hadn't wanted
to tell him, and why she hadn't told the police. When he spoke again
his voice was very soft. He knew he was taking her on an emotional
rollercoaster ride, but he couldn't help himself. He was responding in
the only way he knew how. "It was because of the questions about other
women, wasn't it?"
Again she stared at him, her face an expressionless mask. Finally, she
nodded.
Mulder continued, "The police asked you those questions, and insinuated
that Bill was seeing someone else, and that made you angry, and you
didn't want to give them anything that would reinforce that idea. And
you were afraid I thought the same thing, because I was asking a lot of
the same questions."
He stopped and waited. Again she nodded.
"Tara, I'm very sorry. I know -- believe me, I KNOW -- how much this is
hurting you. Most people think that in this sort of situation the fear
and worry over the missing loved one is what causes all the pain, and
that is important. But that's only part of it."
He stopped and took a breath before continuing. "And the other part of
it, in some ways the worst part, is the sense of violation you get from
the people who are supposedly trying to help you. They pry into your
life, they ask embarrassing questions, they go through your personal
papers and other belongings, they draw unpleasant inferences. And you
know they have to do those things, you know they have to do a thorough
job, but that doesn't make it any less of a violation."
He reached across the table and lightly laid one his hands on top of
each of hers. "Tara, tell me about the fight. I need to know. It's
the only way I know how to do this. I'm sorry."
For a moment he thought she was going to lash out at him again, and he
braced himself for the onslaught. But then she took a long, shaky
breath and sank back down in her chair. And after another moment, she
started talking.
"It was...it was that same afternoon. Wednesday afternoon, the 23rd.
Dana had been here since the previous Saturday, and everything had
seemed to be fine." She smiled at the memory. "Dana and Matthew really
hit it off. It was so sweet." The smile died as quickly as it had
come. "Then on Wednesday afternoon, I walked in on them in Bill's
study. They were talking about something, and they both looked pretty
grim." She shook her head. "I haven't seen Bill look that way
since...since the Gulf War...."
Her voice trailed off. Mulder waited a moment to see if she would
continue on her own. Then, in the same soft, accepting tone of voice,
he said, "Go on, Tara. Tell me. Tell me what happened next."
She shrugged restlessly, and her eyes dropped to look at their hands,
now twined together on the table top. "It was really nothing. I guess
I interrupted something, but I didn't mean to. I just wanted to ask
what they wanted for dinner. But then they both looked so tense and
worried, and I couldn't help myself, I just blurted it out, and asked
Bill what was wrong."
"What did he say?"
"Not much of anything." She looked back up at him, and now her eyes
were large, wounded circles. "He said it was none of my concern. Those
were his exact words. And then...and then he pushed me. He actually
pushed me out of the study and shut the door."
Mulder hesitated, trying to decide how to ask the question which had to
be asked. At last he said, "Tara? Remember, I'm trying to help, so
don't get mad at me. I have to ask this. Is Bill...abusive?"
She shook her head violently. "No. No. Absolutely not. He's never
laid a hand on either me or Matthew." She looked Mulder square in the
eye. "You have to believe me; I would never stand for that. My...my
first boyfriend was like that, and I put up with it for far too long,
until the day he actually put me in the hospital. After that I swore
that I would never allow a man to do that to me again. And Bill never
has."
Mulder nodded. "Okay, I believe you. Let's move on. Was there
anything more to the fight?"
Tara shook her head again. "No, not really. I was waiting until we
went to bed, so we could have some privacy when I confronted him about
it. So I suppose the fight, as such, hadn't actually happened yet. But
I had planned it, and Bill had to know it was coming."
"All right. Do you have any idea, any idea at all, what Bill and Scully
were talking about?"
"No. They were talking about something, and I think it was important,
but they both shut up as soon as I came into the room."
"And this was in the study?" She nodded. "I presume the police went
through the study? Bill's files, papers, that sort of thing?"
"Actually, he doesn't have much in the way of files. He keeps
everything on the PC; he's a very modern sort of guy." She smiled
slightly.
"Did the police look at what was on the computer?"
She shrugged. "I suppose so. I wasn't there while they were
searching. I couldn't bear it."
"Did they take anything with them?"
She shook her head. "No. No, I'm sure they didn't."
Mulder nodded sharply, and stood up. "All right then. Let's go see
what we can find."
# # #
8:22 p.m.
Mulder leaned back in the swivel chair and stared at the computer
screen. Nothing there. Nearly three hours of searching, and there was
nothing there.
Everything was neatly organized, each item labeled and sorted and tucked
away in the appropriate directory on Bill Scully's hard drive. And
there was nothing there. Nothing there to interest him.
Dammit.
Tara sat in a straight backed chair that she'd brought from the dining
room, but Mulder was barely aware of her presence. Neither of them had
spoken a word since leaving the dinner table. There hadn't seemed to be
anything to say.
Mulder sighed. Time to start on the floppies. Not that there'd be
anything on them, either. He opened one of the desk drawers and started
rooting around.
"What are you looking for, Fox?"
He paused for a moment, and turned and looked at her, slightly
startled. "Uh, his backups. His floppies. At least, I'm pretty sure
they'll be on floppies. He doesn't seem to have a zip drive. Do you
know where he keeps them?"
"Oh, sure. Bottom left hand drawer."
Mulder pulled the drawer open, and saw that it contained a storage case
full of floppy disks. He lifted the case out and set it on the desk.
Like the files on the hard drive, the storage case was carefully
organized, with each disk assigned a slot in one of several categories,
and each one labeled and dated in Bill's neat, meticulous handwriting.
Correspondence, personal finances, downloads from various newsgroups and
mailing lists, freeware, shareware....and then he found it.
Maybe.
It was a blank disk. No label. Sitting all by itself in the back of
the storage case. Mulder glanced quickly down at the still-open drawer
where he'd found the case, and noted that it also held two boxes of
unused floppies. One of the boxes had been opened, and looked as if it
was about half full. So Bill didn't keep his unused disks in the
storage case.
Mulder tapped the disk against the edge of the desk thoughtfully. This
could be innocuous. It could be just another blank disk which for some
reason had been put in the storage case instead of being left in the
box. It could also be another backup which Bill hadn't gotten around to
labeling yet, set aside as a reminder that this still needed doing. It
could be any of a number of innocent things, unrelated to Scully and her
brother's disappearance.
But Mulder didn't believe it for a minute. All of his professional
instincts were screaming that this was the key.
One way to find out.
He slipped the disk into the floppy drive and waited for the machine to
read it. His eyes lit up, and he smiled for the first time in hours.
Bingo.
It was password protected.
"Fox? What is it?"
Mulder blinked. Once again, he had forgotten about Tara's presence in
the room. He turned to look at her. "I'm not sure yet," he replied.
"I found it in with the rest of his floppies, but it hasn't got a label,
and it seems to be password protected. The hard drive isn't protected,
and neither are any of the directories or files on it, so I'm guessing
this is something important. With luck, it may be a clue." He paused
for a moment, and drummed his fingers on the desktop. "Do you have any
idea what the password might be?"
She shook her head, and dragged her chair a little closer. "No. I
didn't know Bill had started using passwords."
Mulder nodded absently, and stroked his chin. Then he went on, talking
mostly to himself. "Passwords are supposed to be random character
strings, for security reasons, but almost nobody actually does that.
Most people use something they can remember -- a word, or a phrase.
Something that means something to them. That's how most computer hacks
get done -- by guessing what the original user would have chosen as a
password."
He drummed his fingers on the desktop again, then moved his hands to the
keyboard. "What's Bill's date of birth?"
"March 1, 1962."
Mulder tried typing the date in, using several different formats. None
of them worked.
"Your birthday?"
"August 20, 1965."
Still no luck.
"Your anniversary?"
That one didn't work either. Mulder worked his way through the
significant dates he could think of: Matthew's birthday; Maggie
Scully's birthday; Charlie's and Dana's and Melissa's birthdays.
Graduation dates. Engagement dates. The date of Bill's first command.
So maybe he wasn't using a date. First names of family and close
friends. Middle names. Last names. The names of favorite pets.
Current and former duty stations. Favorite movies and CD's. And on and
on and on. Finally, Mulder ran out of ideas, and just sat staring at
the screen in frustration. He was so close; so very close. He could
feel it. Whatever was on this disk was important. If only he could
come up with the right password. It was driving him nuts, knowing that
the information he needed might be sitting right in front of him. If
only he could find some way to read it!
"Lucasta."
He swiveled his head and looked at Tara. "What?"
"Lucasta," she repeated, an odd look on her face. "It's one of
our...our favorite poems. It means something to us. Try it."
Mulder turned back to the keyboard, and typed in the word.
Paydirt.
His eyes rapidly scanned the filenames appearing on the screen. There
were an even dozen of them, most of them labeled simply with a date.
Towards the bottom of the list, three files caught his eye. One was
labeled "Dana". One was labeled "Jiggs". And one was labeled
"Mulder". All three had been created on the 21st. Five days ago. Two
days before Scully and Bill had disappeared.
He double-clicked on the one with his name on it. And then he swore.
It was encrypted. And a moment later he discovered that the others
were, as well.
This time, Tara touched him lightly on the shoulder, and when he turned
there were question marks in her eyes.
"I don't know, Tara," he said, responding to the question she hadn't
asked. "I don't know what's going on, and I can't find out. Not
directly, anyway." He waved at the computer screen. "He's encrypted
these files, and I'm no computer whiz. Figuring out a password is one
thing; breaking any serious encryption is something very different."
"Couldn't you just find the software he was using?"
Mulder shook his head. "I don't remember seeing anything like that on
the hard drive, but even if I found it, it wouldn't do any good, because
I have no way of knowing what he was using as a key. And I just don't
have the skills to work it out the hard way." He thought about that for
a moment. "But I know some people who do."
He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and punched the third speed
dial, glancing at his watch as he did so. It would be almost midnight
on the east coast, but they wouldn't have gone to bed yet.
The phone was answered on the third ring. "This is Mulder," he said,
and waited.
After a brief pause, Frohike said, "I've turned off the tape; hang on
while I put you on the speaker. Langly and Byers are here, too."
Another pause. "Okay, go ahead."
Mulder briefly explained the situation, concluding, "So I guess I'm up
the river without a paddle. I need these files decrypted, and I need it
done fast. I'm going to email copies to you, okay?"
"Wait a minute, Mulder." It was Langly's voice. "I wouldn't try that,
if I were you."
"Why not?"
"Captain Scully struck me as a thorough sort of guy when he was in
Washington last month. If he's taken the trouble to use passwords AND
encryption, there's also a chance that he's set some booby traps that
would erase the files if anyone tried to copy them. It'd probably be
safer if you just sent us the disk through snailmail."
"Damn. I hadn't thought of that." Mulder drummed his fingers on the
desktop. "Snailmail would take too long. Even by FedEx, there's no way
it'd get to you before Monday, at this point. Is there any way you guys
could come out here? There may be more than just the one disk, in any
case."
Again there was silence on the other end, and Mulder could almost see
the three men exchanging glances and shrugs. He and Scully weren't the
only ones who specialized in non-verbal communication. Finally, Byers
spoke. "Sure Mulder. Whatever you need, we're there for you. And for
Scully. You know that. We'll catch the first flight out of Dulles in
the morning."
"You need any help with travel priorities?" Mulder asked, and then
realized he was being an idiot.
Langly again, laughing: "Don't worry about it. I think I can manage
three plane tickets. You want me to charge them to your Amex, or to
Captain Scully's?" He laughed again. "Or maybe I'll charge them to
that new A.D. of yours, Kersh."
Mulder chuckled. "That would be fitting. He owes Scully a couple of
grand. Just cover your tracks, guys. See you in the morning." And he
hit the disconnect.
# # #
11:43 p.m.
Mulder sat on the sofa, staring at the unlit Christmas tree. A fire was
laid in the hearth, but he hadn't bothered to light it.
He'd spent the rest of the evening going through the other floppy disks
in the storage container, and for the sake of thoroughness had even
checked the blanks in the opened box he had found. As he'd expected,
there had been nothing of any interest. Nothing except that one,
unmarked disk, now resting in his pants pocket. In his mind's eye, he
could still see the filenames, floating in front of him:
981130.
981203.
981204.
And on and on. And finally:
Dana.
Jiggs.
Mulder.
They floated there, tantalizing him, just barely out of his reach. If
only he could move a little bit closer, just a little bit --
"Fox?"
Mulder jumped at the sound of Tara's voice, and turned his head to see
her standing at the foot of the stairs. "Tara," he said. "I thought
you'd gone to bed."
"I had." She stood silently for a moment, then walked slowly over to
the sofa and stood in front of him. She was dressed for bed, the hem of
a sensible flannel nightgown peeking out from beneath a blue quilted
floor-length robe. "But I couldn't sleep."
He nodded slightly, and waited for her to continue.
"Fox, I wanted to...to apologize." He opened his mouth to speak, but
she rushed on, cutting him off. "I've been a perfect bitch today, and
I'm sorry. You don't deserve it. I know you're doing the best you can,
and I really appreciate it." She paused for a moment. "May I sit
down?"
Mulder smiled. "Sure. But only because it's your sofa."
She smiled back, and for the first time in his memory there was real
warmth in it. She sat on the sofa, a foot or so away from him, then
turned to face him again. "I really am sorry, Fox," she said. "And I
really, truly appreciate what you're doing."
"I'm not doing it for you, Tara," he reminded her. "Or at least, not
JUST for you."
She nodded. "I know. I really do know. I know it's not about me, and
I know it's not even about Bill. It's about Dana." She reached out and
gently touched the place over his heart, then drew her hand back and
folded it with the other one in her lap. "I understand."
"Tara, I told you," he said gently. "It's not like that."
Again she nodded. "I know it's not. That's not what I meant. Two
people can love each other very much, even if it isn't...physical." She
blushed slightly. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be stupid, or
embarrassing. I'm just trying to tell you that I understand."
"What do you understand, Tara?"
"I understand that this is just as hard for you as it is for me. Maybe
it's even harder for you, in some ways. At least with me, I'm allowed
to be upset and demonstrative, both because I'm a woman, and because my
relationship with Bill fits into what people expect. But you're a man,
and your relationship with Dana..." She trailed off for a minute, and
shrugged. "It's different, that's all. Most people just don't
understand it."
He considered her words for a moment. Maybe she really did understand,
at least a little. It would be such a relief to find someone who did.
Sometimes he felt very alone, as if no one would ever really understand
the way he felt about Scully, what she meant to him. Hesitantly, he
said, "Have you read the Symposium?"
Tara raised her eyebrows slightly. "You mean Plato?" He nodded, and
she smiled. "Yes. And I was thinking about it just tonight, while I
was lying in bed. It's why I finally came back downstairs." She closed
her eyes and quoted. "'For you may say generally that all desire of
good and happiness is only the great and subtle power of love; but they
who are drawn towards him by any other path, whether the path of
money-making or gymnastics or philosophy, are not called lovers -- the
name of the whole is appropriated to those whose affection takes one
form only -- they alone are said to love, or to be lovers.'"
Mulder smiled again. "I've always liked that passage."
She nodded, a serious expression on her face. "I thought you might."
She held his eyes for just a moment, then stood up from the sofa and
stretched. "Well, it's been a long day, and I haven't really had much
sleep, and tomorrow Matthew comes home from my mother's house. I've got
to get some rest." She hesitated just a moment, then bent down and
kissed Mulder gently on the cheek. "Good night, Fox."
Mulder watched as she walked away, turning his head to follow her
progress towards the stairs. As she put her foot on the first riser, he
said, "Tara?"
She stopped and looked at him over her shoulder. "Yes, Fox?"
"I've never liked my first name. My friends all call me Mulder. Do you
mind?"
The smile he got back this time was radiant. "Of course not. Good
night, Mulder." And then she went on upstairs to bed.
# # #
....Fox sits cross-legged on the floor, focusing all of his attention on
the Stratego board. There has to be an answer, and he knows that if
just thinks about it long enough, he will find it. He absolutely,
positively isn't going to let her win this one. He just has to
concentrate...the answer is here....
....And then he has it. With a smile of triumph, he reaches out and
moves one of his pieces, tapping it against one of hers so that it falls
over, face down....
....And she laughs, and claps her hands together. Fox looks up in
astonishment as his opponent rocks back and forth in delight, her red
hair swirling around her head and mischief dancing in her bright blue
eyes. As she sees the look of puzzlement on his face, her laughter only
increases, and she says, "It's a bomb, Mulder! You hit a bomb!" She
throws her arms in the air and shouts, "Boom!"....
....And he looks down at the board in confusion, and feels his stomach
sinking. A bomb? It can't be a bomb! He has it all worked out; he
knows where her bombs are, and that can't be a bomb. But if it IS a
bomb, if he HAS made a mistake, then he has lost. Again....
....And then she flips her piece over to reveal that it is only a scout
after all, and she leans across the board and puts her arms around his
neck and she whispers in his ear, "I had you big time!"....
....And then the room is flooded with an intense, white light. Fox is
paralyzed; he can't move, he can barely breathe. She seems unable to
move, as well, and as he watches in horror her body lifts off the floor
and floats towards the window. He tries desperately to break free of
whatever force is holding him. He has to get loose, he has to save
her! But even as he struggles, he knows that he will fail, and inside
his head he is screaming her name, over and over and over....
....And then all he can hear is her voice on the answering machine:
"Mulder! I need your help! Mulder! I need your help!
MulderIneedyourhelpMulderIneedyourhelpMulderMulderMulder --"
"Mulder, wake up. Mulder, please wake up -- you're having a nightmare.
Mulder?"
Slowly his eyes opened, and he found himself staring up at Tara Scully's
face. He blinked and shook his head; already the details of the dream
were fading from his consciousness. There had been something about
Samantha, except that she was also Scully...he couldn't quite grasp
it...
It was gone.
"Mulder? Are you awake now?"
He nodded slightly. "I think so." He realized that he was lying on the
sofa, had apparently fallen asleep there, and Tara was kneeling in front
of him, bent over him, peering down at his face, concern etched on her
features. "What...what happened?"
"You had a nightmare," she said. "You were calling to Dana." She
smiled slightly. "Actually, you were calling to 'Scully', but that
means Dana, right?"
He nodded again. Very softly: "Sorry if I woke you."
"That's okay," she replied. "It happens." After the briefest of
hesitations, she said, "Do you remember what you were dreaming about?"
He shook his head. "No. No, it's completely gone." He struggled into
a sitting position, and stretched to get the kinks out of his joints.
"Sorry," he repeated.
Tara stood up and offered him her hand, pulling him from the sofa. "We
should get you tucked into a proper bed; you'll sleep better."
"I'm not sure I can sleep," Mulder admitted. He felt embarrassed at
having to admit to weakness in front of her, but he also felt he owed
her an explanation for having disturbed her sleep. "I, uh, I get these
nightmares, you see. Most of the time I can't remember what they were
about, but they always wake me up." Hesitantly, he looked at her face,
and was relieved to see nothing but understanding and compassion there.
"I haven't had one in awhile." Not since Antarctica.
Tara nodded in sympathy. "I'm so sorry, Mulder. Would you like some
herbal tea? Maybe that would help settle you down."
He shook his head. "No. That doesn't work for me; I've tried it." He
smiled weakly. "Believe me, I've tried most remedies at one time or
another." And there was only one thing that really worked for him, only
one thing that would allow him to get back to sleep -- but she was
missing.
Tara seemed to read his thoughts. "I understand." She took his hand
again and squeezed it briefly. "We'll find them, Mulder. We'll find
them. I promise."
# # #
Miramar Naval Air Station, San Diego, CA
December 27, 12:01 p.m.
"We'll find them, Mulder. We'll find them. I promise."
The words seemed to echo in Mulder's mind as he moved wearily to the
next house. The next front door, identical to all the others on this
block. The next Navy wife, with 2.3 children, a dog and half a dozen
tropical fish. The next bland, colorless woman who had no information
that would be of any use to him. No information at all.
"We'll find them, Mulder. We'll find them. I promise."
He paused for a moment in front of the next house and considered the
matter. How could Tara possibly know a thing like that? How could she
say such a thing? How could she even think it? Scully would have known
better; Scully would never say that to him. Of all the things Scully
had done for him over the years, perhaps the most important was that she
had never promised him that they would find Samantha. Not once; not
even after he'd killed John Roche, when it would have seemed so easy and
natural -- almost necessary -- to try to offer him some form of
reassurance.
Scully had never lied to him. Not about that.
"We'll find them, Mulder. We'll find them. I promise."
Tara hadn't meant to be lying; in his heart he knew that. She had been
trying to help, trying to calm him in the only way she knew how. And he
had allowed her to think that she had succeeded; he had allowed her to
lead him upstairs to the guest room and tuck him into bed, and he had
obediently closed his eyes and lay quietly until she finally slipped out
of the room and returned to her own bed. But he had not slept.
"We'll find them, Mulder. We'll find them. I promise."
Mulder shook his head. Words. Only words.
He sighed, and was about to start up the front walk to the house in
front of him when he heard a vehicle pulling up behind him. Turning, he
saw without surprise that it was the Shore Patrol. He'd been wondering
how long it would take them to show up.
A moment later he was facing a short, stocky brown-haired woman in her
early 30s, wearing the insignia of a lieutenant commander. Her hair was
either cut short or done up in a bun under her uniform hat; Mulder
couldn't tell for sure. In one hand she held a clipboard; the other
hand rested lightly on the baton strapped to her belt, and her body
language radiated confidence and authority.
"May I please see some identification, sir?"
Mulder flipped his badge at her, and replied, "I'm Special Agent Fox
Mulder, FBI. I'm a guest this weekend of Bill and Tara Scully."
The woman briefly consulted her clipboard and nodded. "All right; I
have you on my list." She looked back up at him. "Agent Mulder, as you
might guess we've had some phone calls about you this morning. I
understand that you've been asking questions about Captain Scully and
his sister. May I ask what your interest is in this matter?"
"Dana Scully is my partner."
The lieutenant commander nodded again, as if she already knew that, and
stood looking at him for a moment seeming to study his face. Finally,
she sighed. "Agent Mulder, I don't wish to be difficult, and I
appreciate the situation you're in. But you don't look like you've just
fallen off the turnip truck, and I'm sure you know that you cannot
conduct an investigation on this base without permission from our
office."
Mulder nodded in resignation. "I know. I should have checked in with
you yesterday. I'm sorry." He tried to keep the bitterness out of his
voice. "God forbid I should offend the gods of the bureaucracy."
She actually smiled at that. "Hey, we both know how the game is
played." The smile vanished. "But for the moment I'm afraid I'll have
to ask you to cease and desist. Tomorrow morning you can come in and
talk to Captain Talbot; I'm sure he'll find a way to work things out for
you. But until then...." Her voice trailed off.
Mulder nodded again, and for just a moment he looked back at the house
he'd been about to approach. He knew in his heart that there was
nothing there for him. Finally he turned back to face her. "That's
okay, Commander. I was done here anyway." And he turned and walked
away, back towards Tara's house.
# # #
Residence of Bill and Tara Scully
12:32 p.m.
The Lone Gunmen were waiting for him when he got back.
"Frohike," Mulder said, amused in spite of himself. "You
look...charming." The little computer geek was standing in the doorway
to the kitchen, wearing a frilly, feminine looking apron with "Navy Mom"
embroidered on it in hot pink. "Why haven't I ever seen this side of
you before?"
Frohike snorted. "Laugh it up, G-man," he replied, humor glinting in
his eyes. "SOMEBODY has to cook lunch, and Mrs. Scully had to go pick
up her kid. Come on and keep me company while I finish up."
Mulder hesitated. "Are Langly and Byers..." He let his voice trail
off.
"They're in the study, working," Frohike replied. "There's not much I
can contribute right now, so I've been relegated to K.P." He stood
looking at Mulder for a moment; when the agent didn't move, he added,
very softly, "Come on, Mulder. There's nothing you can do right now,
either."
A short while later Mulder was leaning against the kitchen counter,
watching as Frohike poured a little more beer into the bubbling cheese
mixture on the stove.
"Welsh rarebit, Frohike?" Mulder asked. "I had no idea. I thought
frozen pizzas and carryout were the extent of your culinary talents."
The little man smirked slightly. "How often do I get access to a real
kitchen?" he asked. "Certainly not at YOUR place. But I'll have you
know that I was the pride and joy of Mrs. Johnson's eighth grade home ec
class at Chester Arthur Junior High."
"You took home ec?"
Frohike looked at him briefly and grinned. "Sure. It was the only way
to get out of taking shop, and Mr. Gonshorowski certainly had nothing he
could teach ME. Besides, I was the only guy in a class with 20 girls."
He looked back down at the pan. "Be nice to me, Mulder, and sometime
I'll make you my famous crepes suzette."
The two men fell silent for a moment. There was an awkwardness between
them, an uneasiness which wasn't normally there, and after a minute
Mulder realized what was causing it. "It's okay, Frohike," he said
softly.
The little man didn't look up, but kept stirring the cheese sauce.
After another short silence, he shook his head. "No it's not," he said
flatly, and finally turned to look Mulder in the eye. "I let you down.
You were counting on me to get you the information you needed, and I let
you down. I let HER down."
Mulder took a step forward, and laid a hand on Frohike's shoulder. "You
didn't let her down, Frohike. You got me exactly what I asked for.
It's not your fault if there wasn't anything there to find."
Frohike stared at him for another pair of minutes, and Mulder was
shocked to see unshed tears glistening in the little man's eyes.
Finally, Frohike said, "You know, don't you, that I love her as much as
you do." It wasn't really a question.
Mulder nodded. Very softly: "Yeah. Yeah, I know that. And so does
she."
"Are we gonna find her?"
Mulder hesitated, remembering how he himself had reacted to Tara's
assurances after his nightmare. Finally he just said, "We're going to
do the very best we can."
"I hope to god it's enough," the little man replied.
"So do I, Frohike. So do I."
# # #
12:51 p.m.
"Is that really a Mercedes you guys have parked in the driveway?" Mulder
asked as he slid into his seat at the dining room table. The three
Gunmen were already seated and working on their portions of the welsh
rarebit. "I suppose I knew it was possible to rent a Mercedes, but I
never thought I'd see it done." He cut off a piece of toast smothered
in cheese sauce and popped it into his mouth. Raising his eyebrows in
surprise as he chewed and swallowed, he looked over at Frohike. "You
know, this is actually pretty good."
Frohike smirked. "It'd be better if Captain Scully had anything other
than Rolling Rock in his fridge. I assume that's YOUR influence." And
he rolled his eyes.
Langly picked up the conversation. "Yeah, it's a Mercedes. I like to
travel in style." There was a gleam of malice in his eye. "Besides,
Kersh's Amex isn't even close to its credit limit. Yet." And he took
another bite of rarebit.
Mulder snickered. "I don't think I even want to know about this." He
took another bite and shook his head. "This really is good." He
wiggled his eyebrows at Frohike. "Sure you don't want to settle down
and raise a passle of kids?" Frohike snorted, and Mulder turned his
attention back to Langly and Byers. "So have you got anything yet?"
Byers shook his head. "Not much. And what little we do know is bad."
He glanced at Langly, then back at Mulder. "It looks like Captain
Scully was using DES encryption, which is no big surprise, since he
works for the Navy. And while DES is far from being as secure as the
NSA claims it is, it's still going to take awhile to crack."
"How long?" Mulder asked.
Byers shrugged. "It's hard to say for sure. With the right specialized
equipment, we could probably do it in a few hours, but with what we were
able to bring with us it's probably going to take a couple of days."
"Two days," Mulder repeated. He put down his fork and stared down at
his plate. Somehow he'd been sure that his friends would be able to
wave a magic wand and solve all his problems. Idiot. That only
happened in the movies. He took a deep breath and raised his eyes to
look at Byers again. "Well, do the best you can."
Langly cleared his throat. "Uh, Mulder, I know you've probably already
done all the easy stuff, but --"
"Yeah," Mulder replied. "Tara and I spent a good part of yesterday
evening going through birthdays, nicknames, and all that crap. Came up
empty, except for the filenames."
Langly glanced at Byers and Frohike, then looked back at Mulder.
"Actually, it was the filenames I was thinking about. Has it occurred
to you to call Colonel Casey and ask him if he knows anything about
this? After all, his name is on one of those files."
Mulder stared at the blond man in stunned disbelief. Call Jiggs Casey?
Why in the hell hadn't that occurred to him sooner? It was so
blindingly obvious. Was he really so far gone in rage and self-pity
that he could overlook something that elementary?
His thoughts flashed back briefly to the month before. He'd met Casey
briefly at the climax of the last investigation he and Bill had worked
on together. The colonel was an old friend of Bill Scully's, and an
aide to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Casey's personal
intervention at a crucial moment had helped to break the back of a
military conspiracy to overthrow the government, and it made perfect
sense that Bill might turn to the tough-minded Marine in a crisis.
Just as he had turned to Dana.
And just as he had apparently considered, at least, turning to Mulder.
"Dammit!" Mulder jumped from his chair and strode rapidly to Bill
Scully's study and started going through desk drawers. He found the
address book on the third try, and in another moment he was lifting the
phone and preparing to dial.
"Wait a minute, Mulder!"
He looked up in surprise to see Langly moving rapidly forward. The
blond man took the phone from Mulder's hand and replaced it on the
cradle. "The other thing I didn't get a chance to tell you is that the
phones in this house are tapped. I discovered it during a routine sweep
while you were out, earlier."
Mulder nodded, and reached in his pocket for his cell phone. "At this
point," he said, "nothing can surprise me."
In another moment, he found out he was wrong.
# # #
Shore Patrol HQ, Miramar Naval Air Station
December 28, 9:21 a.m.
Jiggs Casey was dead.
The shock still reverberated through Mulder's system, nearly 24 hours
later. To have had his first real lead dangled in front of him, only to
be snatched away moments later...it had been unbearable. Mulder had
felt himself slipping into a deep depression, into a darker place than
any he had inhabited since Antarctica, and for the rest of Sunday he had
been barely able to function, let alone think coherently.
*God, don't let Scully be dead. Please God, let her be alive. Let me
find her.*
But Jiggs Casey was dead, along with his wife. Dead in a house fire,
apparently caused by faulty wiring in their Christmas lights. Dead in a
house fire that started on the afternoon of December 23rd. Dead in a
fire that started almost to the minute as Scully and her brother had
pulled out of the driveway and vanished. It was a horrible, ghastly
coincidence.
Mulder didn't believe it for a minute.
*God, don't let Scully be dead. Please God, let her be alive. Let me
find her.*
That had been his mantra the rest of the day, it had been all he could
think of. The darkness had settled around him, enveloping him and
cuddling him like the old friend that it was. He had sat on Tara's
sofa, staring at nothing at all, not even allowing himself the comfort
of curling up into a ball. He had been vaguely aware of the Gunmen
moving about the house, talking quietly to each other, and later he had
noticed a woman's voice, and Mulder had been forced to rouse himself
just enough to confirm that it was not Scully before slipping back into
his fugue.
*God, don't let Scully be dead. Please God, let her be alive. Let me
find her.*
Eventually the house had grown quiet, and Mulder had known that he was
alone at last, and finally it was safe to cry. But he had not been able
to.
"Agent Mulder?"
Mulder blinked and emerged from his reverie. That had been dangerous,
he realized. He was very fragile emotionally, and it wouldn't take much
to send him right back into the fugue of the night before. He had to
concentrate on the outside world; he had to concentrate on doing his
job.
He had to find Scully.
He rose from the bench he'd been sitting on and stepped forward to meet
the tall, grey-haired man in the uniform of a Navy captain who had
called his name.
"I'm Robert Talbot," the man said. "I understand you wanted to see me?"
"That's correct, Captain Talbot." He flipped his badge at the man, then
reached out and shook his hand.
A moment later the two men were seated in Talbot's office. Talbot sat
looking at Mulder for a moment, his fingers steepled under this chin,
and Mulder had a sudden premonition that the interview was not going to
go well.
Finally: "Agent Mulder, I'll come straight to the point. While I am
not happy that you launched into this investigation without getting
clearance from my office, I do understand your situation. I'm willing
to let that go by; water under the bridge, and so forth." And he
stopped and waited. Mulder nodded.
"However," the officer continued, "I'm afraid I'm not going to be able
to permit you to resume your investigation. At least, not at this
time."
"Why not?" Mulder spoke sharply, rapidly. He felt his emotions boiling
up in his chest. He had to make Talbot understand; he had to get his
cooperation. "I have a legitimate interest; this is my partner and her
brother we're talking about. And I've been granted full authority by
the Bureau to pursue the matter. Naturally, I'll be happy to cooperate
with your office in any way that's necessary --"
"Agent Mulder." The other man was holding up his hand, forestalling the
flood of words. He compressed his lips, and his face took on the
expression of a man about to deliver bad news which was not of his
devising. "I'm afraid your authority to investigate this case has been
terminated."
Mulder felt his eyes widen in shock. "Terminated? By who?"
"By your headquarters in Washington. I received a call this morning
from an Assistant Director Kersh informing me of this decision. It was
confirmed by fax just before you arrived." Pause. "I'm sorry, Agent
Mulder."
Mulder sat in stunned silence and tried to comprehend what Talbot had
just said, but it just refused to sink in. He could not conceive that
anyone would deny him what he needed to find Scully. This wasn't
happening; it couldn't be happening. It was a dream, all a dream. A
nightmare.
"Agent Mulder?"
He snapped back to a semblance of attentiveness and found himself rising
to his feet. "Thank you for seeing me, Captain. I'm sorry for taking
so much of your time."
"Agent Mulder --"
The door swung shut behind him, shutting off the other man's words.
# # #
Fred's HandiMart, San Diego, CA
December 29, 4:23 p.m.
"I'm sorry," the clerk said, shaking her head. "I haven't seen either
one of them."
"You're sure?" Mulder replied, still holding the two photographs out for
her inspection. "It would have been the evening of the 23rd, around
seven or perhaps a little later. They were looking for eggnog."
The clerk continued shaking her head. "No. No I definitely didn't see
them. And I was the only one working that night. Sorry." And she
turned to the next customer.
Mulder turned and walked out of the store. In the past 36 hours he had
canvassed every grocery and convenience store in a two mile radius of
the Scully residence, and found nothing. Not that this was surprising;
the San Diego Police had already covered the same territory, and also
came up empty. But Mulder had no other leads, nothing to go on, and he
couldn't stand just sitting in Tara's living room waiting for something
to break. He had to stay active, or the fugue he'd experience on Sunday
night would return.
Kersh had called three times in the past day and a half, each call more
abusive than the one before. On the last occasion, two hours before,
the Assistant Director had threatened to send someone out from the San
Diego field office to claim Mulder's badge and gun. Mulder had turned
his cell phone off after that call, and then switched it back on thirty
second later. Scully might call that number; she might call to tell him
she was okay, and on her way home. Or she might call to ask for his
help. She might.
She might.
He wouldn't let himself think about the third possible call he might
receive about Scully -- the one that some stranger would have to place.
He slid into his rental car and picked up the list of stores he'd left
laying on the passenger seat. Fred's HandiMart had been the last place
on the list; now he had nowhere else to go. No one else to interview.
No more leads to follow up on.
Nothing to do but wait.
He sat in the car for several minutes, staring out through the
windshield and off into the distance. She was out there somewhere. He
could feel it. Somewhere....somewhere...somewhere in this city. He
almost felt he could hear her heartbeat. It was calling to him,
beseeching him, asking him to come to her. If only he could listen just
a little more carefully....
He shook his head in exasperation. This wasn't getting him anywhere,
anymore than interviewing Bill and Tara's neighbors had, anymore than
canvassing grocery stores had. He had to keep himself focused on the
task; he had to follow the careful, methodical steps he'd been taught to
use so many years ago in Quantico. He had to suppress his natural
tendency to go haring off on a hunch, and take the cool, rational
scientific approach.
He had to be Scully. Not Mulder; Scully. Mulder alone was only half a
person. Only Scully was whole; only Scully could find the truth. Only
Scully.
He started the car and threw it into gear, and headed back to Tara's
house.
# # #
Residence of Bill and Tara Scully
December 29, 5:15 p.m.
Mulder pulled into the driveway next to the Gunmen's Mercedes and
switched off the engine. He sat for just a moment, his hands still
resting on the steering wheel. He hadn't slept much in the past 48
hours, and he was tired; bone tired. The need to cover the grocery
stores was all that had been keeping him going, and now that the
interviews were over, with nothing to show for them, he really starting
to feel the exhaustion. He knew he would have to sleep soon, or he
would be no good to anyone.
Like he was any good to anyone now.
He pulled the key from the ignition and climbed wearily from the car,
and a moment later he was standing in Tara's living room, staring at the
sofa. What little sleep he had got had been on that sofa, and now it
seemed to be reaching out to him, calling his name and inviting him to
stretch out and let his cares disappear. It was so tempting just to let
it all go for a few hours. Just stretch out, let the tired muscles
relax, and....
"Mulder?"
He looked around and saw Tara standing in the door to the kitchen,
holding Matthew in her arms. He nodded slightly in acknowledgement of
their presence; he was suddenly too tired for any but the most necessary
speech.
"How'd it go? Did you find anything?"
He could tell from her tone of voice that she already knew the answer,
but still he shook his head. "No."
She nodded slightly, and just stood looking at him for a minute. Then:
"You got a letter this afternoon."
Mulder felt his eyebrows raise slightly. "A letter?"
"Yeah." She nodded towards the sofa. "I put it on the coffee table."
Again she feel silent, and the two stood looking at each other for a
moment. Finally she simply turned and walked back out of the room.
He watched her go, and continued looking at the empty doorway for
another moment, before finally turning and walking over to the sofa,
sitting down heavily. The letter was just where Tara had said it was,
lying on the coffee table next to the copy of the Symposium which he had
found in Bill and Tara's library the night before.
He reached out and picked up the envelope. His name was typed on the
front, and it was addressed in care of Tara Scully, Miramar Naval Air
Station, San Diego. It was postmarked the previous day.
For a minute he pondered the significance -- if any -- of the fact that
it was addressed to him in care of Tara rather than in care of Bill, but
the meaning of that eluded him. He was tired; so tired. He really
needed to sleep before his brain stopped functioning entirely. But
first he had to see what was in the envelope. He slit the flap open
with his thumbnail, and gently shook it until the contents slid out onto
his lap.
Mulder froze.
It was picture; a Polaroid snapshot, of Scully and her brother. They
were sitting on a sofa, side by side, and Scully was holding a copy of
yesterday's newspaper, angled so that the headline was visible.
Something about Iraq, but that wasn't important; what mattered was that
she was alive -- or had been 24 hours or so ago.
Or at least, someone wanted him to think that, he reminded himself. It
would be no big trick to fake such a picture; hell, he himself might
even be able to manage it, and it would be no feat at all for the Lone
Gunmen. So the photo itself proved nothing, and he knew that whoever
had sent it to him also knew that. They were playing with his
uncertainty; they wanted him to have hope, but then to doubt his own
hope. They wanted him to doubt himself.
And it was working.
With a groan of despair, Mulder closed his eyes.
# # #
....Fox bursts from the house, his father's gun in his hand. The El
Camino is idling in the driveway, and against the glare of the
headlights Fox can see the shadowy form of the man struggling to force
her into the car. Fox races forward, brandishing the gun, but even as
he crosses the few remaining feet the car door slams shut and the El
Camino is pulling away....
....And then Fox is running through the woods, gun in one hand and
flashlight in the other. The El Camino is somewhere up ahead, he knows
it is, and if he can just run fast enough he can catch them, he can
still save her....
....And a shadowy form looms up in the darkness, it is a man, and Fox
grabs his shoulder and spins him around, then falls back in shocked
disbelief: It is his father....
....And his father shakes his head sadly, and says, "I'm sorry, Fox; I'm
truly sorry. But a choice had to be made, and it's all for the greater
good. Someday, you'll understand." A shot rings out, and Fox's father
crumples to the ground without another word, and Fox looks down in
horror at the curl of smoke rising from the barrel of the gun he still
holds tightly in his hand....
....And Fox is running through the woods again, but his flashlight is
gone, his gun is gone, and now he isn't trying to catch the El Camino,
he's running away. Something is chasing him, something dark and
powerful and dangerous, and his arms and legs are pumping and he's
drawing his breath in short, sharp gasps....
....And he trips over a tree root and falls to the ground. For a moment
he lies there, stunned, unable to move, barely able to breathe. The
thing which has been chasing him is coming closer, closer; he can hear
it moving through the brush. He struggles to a sitting position and
leans back against a tree, still trying to catch his breath, and he
stares through the darkness, trying to make out what it is that is
pursuing him....
....And she is crouching before him, her form barely discernible behind
the glare of her flashlight, and she's taking him gently by the
shoulders and forcing him to lie down, while speaking quietly to him and
telling him he needs to rest. "Come on, Mulder; work with me here. You
haven't slept in two days." Her voice is soft and lilting, music to his
ears, and he allows her to lie him down on the sofa, and her hands
briefly and gently caress his forehead....
Mulder instinctively reached out and embraced her, drawing her down into
his arms, holding her tightly against him, and for a moment he just held
her there, gently rocking her back and forth, back and forth, back and
forth. It was dark in the room, the only light coming from the
partially open door to Bill's study. Mulder wanted to speak to her, he
wanted to say something, but if he did so it would break the spell, and
so he just continued to hold her and rock her.
Finally he heard her voice, muffled against his shirt. "Mulder?
Mulder, I can barely breathe....let me go."
He hastily released her and scooted away from her and into a sitting
position as she straightened up and climbed back to her feet.
"S-sorry, Tara," he mumbled, not able to meet her eye.
He heard her chuckle in the darkness. "It's okay. When you're a woman
in a man's world you get used to being grabbed from time to time." Her
voice changed, becoming softer, more serious. "I'm sorry I woke you; I
was just trying to help you get more comfortable."
He shook his head, still not looking at her. "It's okay. I think I was
having another nightmare." But even as he thought about it, the
fragments of the dream were evaporating, drifting away, and in another
few seconds they were gone.
"I'm sorry." Pause. "I saw that picture you were holding. Of Bill and
Dana."
Automatically, he looked down into his lap, but the picture was gone.
He turned his eyes to the coffee table, then bent over to look down on
the floor, but it wasn't there, either.
Tara's voice again. "I showed it to your friends. The blond one --
Langly. He seemed to think they might be able to learn something from
it. They're working with it now."
Mulder nodded, and finally he was able to look up at her. "Have they
made any progress with those encrypted files?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. They didn't say anything about it, so I
suppose not."
At that moment he heard Byers' voice from the direction of the study.
"Mulder? I think we've got something for you."
Thirty seconds later Mulder, Tara and the three Lone Gunmen were
clustered around Bill's PC, looking at a blowup of the photograph Mulder
had received. Langly was speaking.
"We scanned the picture into this sorry excuse for a computer," he was
saying, "and went to work on analyzing the image. I ran the usual tests
-- checked for odd shadows, looked for reflections, and for pixels that
didn't belong...all the regular stuff. The short version is that I am
95 percent certain that this is a natural scene; the photograph has NOT
been tampered with."
Mulder let out his breath. "Thank god. Then they're alive. Or they
were." He glanced at Tara, standing next to him, but her expression was
giving nothing away.
"That's the way I've got it figured, " Langly said. "Someone must be
trying to send you a message, and the most obvious message is 'back
off'."
Mulder nodded. He'd already worked that out.
"However," Langly continued, "it turns out that the bad guys aren't the
only ones sending a message in this picture."
"What do you mean?" Mulder asked.
Frohike picked up the story. "What he means," the little man said, "is
that Agent Scully and her brother are two cool cookies. They can't have
had much warning that this picture was going to be taken, but they still
worked out a way to send you a message."
Mulder shook his head. "What message? I don't see anything." He
leaned closer to the computer screen, trying to discern...something.
But there just wasn't anything there.
"That's because you were never in the Navy," Frohike said. "And hard as
it may be to believe, I was." His short, stubby little finger reached
out and touched the image on the computer screen. "Look at the position
their arms are in."
Mulder frowned and looked. The positioning did seem a little odd:
Bill's chin was balanced on the fingertips of his right hand, the elbow
resting casually in his lap, while his left hand hung straight down at
his side, fingers reaching towards the floor. Scully, sitting next to
him, had her left hand stretched out along the back of the sofa they
were sitting on, while her right hand, the one holding the newspaper,
hung down at her side, next to Bill's left.
"Okay," Mulder said finally. "Okay, so it does look a little odd." He
paused, trying to figure out what he was supposed to be seeing, but it
just wasn't coming to him. Finally he shook his head again. "But I
just don't get it. What am I missing?"
"It's semaphore," Tara said suddenly. Mulder turned to look at her in
surprise, and saw her glancing at Frohike. "Isn't it?"
The little computer geek nodded smugly. "Give the lady a cigar," he
said. Again he pointed at the screen. "No possible doubt once you know
what to look for. It has to be deliberate; no one would sit that way by
accident." His finger touched the image of Bill Scully. "'D'. Or
possibly '4'." His finger moved to Scully. "And this one is 'F', or
'6'."
# # #
December 29, 11:42 p.m.
Mulder sat on the sofa in Tara's living room once again, trying to
think. He hadn't bothered to turn on the lights; his mind worked better
in the dark, anyway. He kept his body still and calm, his breathing
slow and even, and tried the various permutations in his head, trying to
make sense of the message.
DF. D4. D6. F4. F6. 46.
He and Tara and the Gunmen had spent forty minutes kicking it around,
brainstorming and trying to make sense of it, but they'd gotten
nowhere. Finally Matthew had cried, and Tara had gone to take care of
him, and somehow Mulder had wound up by himself on the sofa again.
Whatever the message was, Scully and her brother had expected him, or
possibly Tara, to be able to work it out. There was something there;
something significant. Something they were trying to tell him. But
what? What? They'd tried map coordinates, and they'd tried the
assumption that the figures were in hexadecimal notation and converted
them to digital and then to binary, but still they'd found nothing
familiar. Nothing. Nothing.
He shook his head in frustration. This was getting him nowhere. His
mind was running in circles, plowing over the same ground, over and
over, and it was making him crazy. He was still pretty tired; he'd only
slept for about five hours, and while that had taken the edge off his
exhaustion, he was still way behind in that department. Maybe if he
could just stretch out and shut his eyes for a few minutes, and try to
blank his mind, something would come to him.
Mulder was jolted from his thoughts by a knock on the front door. It
was soft and hesitant, as if the caller wanted to avoid waking anyone
who might be sleeping. But who the hell could it be at this time of
night? Even as the question ran through Mulder's mind, the knock was
repeated, somewhat more insistently.
He climbed to his feet and crossed over to the door, switching on the
lights as he went. He paused for just a moment, unsure of what he might
face when he pulled the door open, then shrugged. How much worse could
things really get? He unfastened the safety chain, then turned the knob
and opened the door, and he felt his eyebrows shoot up in surprise.
What was SHE doing here?
After a moment of silence, she said, "Aren't you going to invite me in,
Fox?"
Mulder blinked, and stepped back out of the way to allow her to pass.
He pushed the door shut and reset the chain before turning to face her.
"Diana," he said. "It would be an understatement to say that this is a
surprise."
She nodded. "I know. And I wish it could be a pleasant surprise, but
unfortunately it's not."
"Mulder?"
Mulder glanced away from Diana and saw Tara standing at the foot of the
stairs, a puzzled look on her face. "Tara," he said. "We seem to have
a surprise visitor. This is Special Agent Diana Fowley; she's an
old...friend of mine. Diana, this is Tara Scully, Dana's
sister-in-law."
For a moment the two women regarded each other from across the room in
silence, neither making a move towards the other. Finally, Diana took
the initiative. "Mrs. Scully," she said. "I'm so sorry about...about
what's happened. I want you to know that the Bureau is doing everything
it can to find your husband. And Agent Scully, of course, as well," she
added, turning back to face Mulder again.
Tara nodded, remaining silent, and still she made no move towards the
other woman. Mulder could see that she was thinking about something,
something complex and not entirely pleasant, but for the life of him he
couldn't figure out what it was. He shrugged and turned back to Diana.
"Okay, Diana," he said. "What are you here for? And make it march;
I've got a case I'm working on, and I don't have a lot of time to waste
on idle chit-chat."
Diana walked over to stand in front of him, her features calm and
professional. "Actually, Fox, that's why I'm here. Kersh sent me."
Mulder simply stood there, staring at her. She couldn't possibly mean
what she had just implied. He shook his head. "I'm not getting it,
Diana; it's been a long day. Better spell it out for me."
She sighed, and the professional mask melted away, leaving an expression
of sorrow. "I'm sorry, Fox. I really am. But I'm doing you a favor,
and eventually I think you'll understand that. Kersh was going to send
the local ASAC, but I persuaded him that it would be better coming from
a friend." She held out her hand. "I have to have your badge and your
gun. I'm sorry, Fox."
For a timeless interval Mulder stood completely still, just looking at
her and trying to comprehend what was going on. He knew Kersh had
threatened to do just exactly this, but he hadn't taken it seriously.
Truth be told, he hadn't really been paying close attention to anything
Kersh had said; the man just didn't enter into the equation, and Mulder
had ignored him. And in retrospect that had clearly been a serious
error. With a sigh of resignation, he put his hand on the butt of his
service pistol.
And then Tara said, "D.F."
Mulder froze. D.F. Diana Fowley. And then he drew the pistol and
pointed it directly at Diana's heart.
# # #
"Fox? What they hell are you --"
"Shut up, Diana," Mulder snapped. He looked at her warily, and
automatically took two steps to the left so that Tara would no longer be
in the line of fire.
Could it really be Diana? He'd drawn the pistol on instinct, as soon as
Tara's words had sunk in, but now he couldn't help but wonder. It
seemed so fantastic -- not to mention the convenience of having her turn
up at just this moment.
Of course, that very coincidence was also evidence against her. Why in
the hell would she have flown all the way across the country just to
claim his gun and his badge? Her stated reason didn't really hold
water. It's not like the two of them were that close any longer.
Scully might possibly do that for him. But Diana?
"Fox?" Diana's voice drew him back out of his reverie, and for a moment
he studied her face. He wasn't sure what he was looking for; what he
did see was an uneasy mix of confusion and anger. But no hurt; no sign
of any sense of betrayal. And that was another point against her.
"Fox!" This time she spoke more sharply. "Fox, this isn't helping
matters." Her hand was still extended, frozen in place from the moment
he'd draw his weapon. "Just give me the gun, and we'll forget about it,
okay?"
Mulder shook his head. "I don't think so, Diana," he said. He looked
at her for just another moment, and then made his decision. He had no
evidence; none at all. But his professional instincts had kicked in,
and he was sure that he was right. "Down on your knees, and put your
hands on top of your head." She didn't move, and he barked, "Do it!"
Diana's eyes widened, and then she did as instructed. Without taking
his eyes off of her, Mulder said, "Tara? Are you going to be able to
help me out, or am I on my own?"
After just the briefest of hesitations, Tara replied, "I can help. What
do you want me to do?"
"We need to get her gun away from her," he said. "She carries it on her
right hip. And unless she's changed her habits, she's got a holdout
strapped to her left ankle." He addressed his captive again. "And
Diana, if you so much as twitch I'll blow your fucking head off."
"Fox, this is insane! You don't know what --"
"Shut up, Diana! Not another word! Last warning." He was aware of
motion in his peripheral vision, and realized that the Gunmen had been
attracted by the activity in the living room. His eyes still fixed on
Diana, he said, "Frohike? You there?"
"Yeah, Mulder." The little computer geek's voice was tentative,
uncertain.
"I need deep background on Diana, and I need it now. I think she's been
flipped, and I need to know how and I need to know when. Check all the
usual stuff: Credit card records, Bureau personnel files, whatever you
can find. It may be blackmail. I doubt if it's personal gain or
ideology, but don't leave anything out."
After a short pause: "I'm on it."
Tara had stepped forward and was now kneeling next to Diana and looking
at Mulder questioningly. "Go ahead," he said. "I'm covering her."
Hesitantly, Tara reached under Diana's jacket, and in another moment the
agent had been disarmed. Tara stood up and backed away carefully,
holding Diana's service pistol in one hand and her holdout, a
short-barreled small caliber weapon, in the other.
"Anything else, Diana? Or do I need to strip search you?" The woman
hesitated, then shook her head. "Okay. Stay on your knees and keep
your hands on your head." He stood looking at her speculatively again.
The longer this confrontation went on, the surer he was becoming that he
was doing the right thing. Diana's reactions didn't seem quite right;
there was not enough outrage, and her reason for being here was seeming
less plausible with each passing minute.
"What's going on, Diana?" he asked abruptly.
She shook her head. "I don't know what you're talking about." Pause.
"Fox? This is crazy!"
"At least we agree on something." He regarded her for another moment,
and then he noticed her purse lying on the floor a few feet to her
left. "Tara," he said. "Get her purse. Dump it out on the sofa."
He waited while she complied, then sidled over to the couch, out of
Diana's line of sight, and glanced down at the small pile of this and
that. Wallet; lipstick; comb...all the usual woman stuff. He picked up
the wallet and riffled through it hastily, keeping one eye on Diana as
he did so. Money, credit cards, a prescription for eyeglasses...nothing
significant as far as he could tell, but maybe Frohike would be able to
make something of it. He glanced down at the remaining items laying on
the sofa.
Her cell phone. On an impulse, he picked it up and flipped it open,
scanning the list of speed dials, and he felt his eyebrows raise.
"Well, well, what have we here?" he said, walking back around in front
of her and holding the phone out in front of him where she could see
it. "Ten speed dial slots, and only nine of them in use. Why is that,
Diana?"
She shrugged. "I guess I only have nine friends," she said, sarcasm
dripping from her voice. "Eight, now."
"Yes, but Diana, why is number six the slot you left vacant? Most
people would have left the last one vacant." She shrugged again, but
didn't say anything. Mulder continued, "Could be an old boyfriend, I
suppose...but it doesn't look like it's been whited out." He studied
her face for a moment, but she was giving nothing away. "Why don't I
just push the button and find out?" And before she could respond he
jabbed the button with his thumb, and then raised the phone to his ear.
"It's dialing through," he commented, still watching Diana's face. But
still she maintained an expressionless mask. "And now it's ringing.
That's one....that's two...."
The phone was answered on the sixth ring, and a sleepy male voice said,
"Yes?"
Mulder hesitated briefly, not sure what to do next, then shrugged. In
for a penny, in for a pound. "This is Fox Mulder," he said. "I wonder
if you might be able to help me locate a couple of friends who've gone
missing."
The was a long minute of silence, and Mulder was just beginning to doubt
his strategy when the response came. "Agent Mulder. What an unexpected
pleasure." A chill went down Mulder's spine; he could almost smell the
tobacco smoke. "To what do I owe the honor of this call?"
His eyes boring into Diana's, Mulder said, "I was just having a chat
with a mutual friend, and she suggested that I call you, just for old
time's sake."
"Really." The other man fell silent for a moment, and Mulder realized
with a thrill that for once he actually had the bastard off balance. He
decided to press his advantage.
"Yes, really," he said. "You know, you really need to find better
help. Diana didn't last five minutes once I started putting the screws
on." He saw Diana's eyes widen as the shot went home. "Of course, she
doesn't really seem to have anything I didn't already know. We already
have all of the emails between Captain Scully and Colonel Casey."
Another silence, longer than the one before. "I think you're bluffing,
Agent Mulder."
Mulder forced a derisive laugh. "You thought Skinner was bluffing,
too," he replied. "Remember Albert Hosteen?" Another inspiration
struck him. "You know, I should give Albert a jingle. As I recall, you
were supposed to keep Agent Scully and me safe, and you seem to have
dropped the ball, at least with respect to her."
"Oh, she's safe, Agent Mulder," the other man said. "Perfectly safe.
She'll even remain that way, as long as you don't interfere with things
which are none of your business."
Standoff. Mulder considered the matter for a moment. This was the
first real lead he'd had, and he had to find some way to exploit it.
But the seconds were racing by, and he could feel his advantage slipping
away. Finally, the other man laughed softly. "I think we understand
each other, Agent Mulder." And the line went dead.
Mulder stood staring at the phone thoughtfully, and for a moment he shut
out the rest of the room, trying to put the pieces together. He had to
concentrate; he had to work this out. He'd made a definite connection
between Diana and the Consortium, but that didn't really give him --
"Mulder!" His head whipped around at Tara's cry, just as Diana crashed
into him, sending him sprawling back into the Christmas tree. For a
moment the tree teetered, and then the entire assemblage went toppling
over with a crash and a tinkle of broken glass.
Mulder fought against the entangling branches for a moment, struggling
free just in time to see Diana streaking out the front door, and by the
time he had clambered to his feet and reached the doorway she was in her
car and revving the engine, and in another instant she was gone.
# # #
Residence of Bill and Tara Scully
December 30, 11:29 p.m.
Once again Mulder found himself sitting on the sofa in Tara Scully's
living room. Another day had passed. Another wasted day. Another 24
hours gone, and he was no closer to finding Scully and her brother.
After the encounter with Diana Fowley, Mulder had had high hopes that
perhaps things were finally starting to break. Frohike's researches had
revealed the probable reason for Diana's betrayal: Rising credit card
debt coupled with bad investment decisions in her personal finances
through 1996 and 1997, culminating with several defaults in early 1998.
Bankruptcy papers had been drawn up and filed in her home state, the
Bureau had become involved due to regulations prohibiting federal
employees from welshing on their debts...and then, rather suddenly, she
was in the clear financially, and even had a respectable nest egg.
The pattern should have set alarms ringing at the OPR, but Mulder had no
doubt of the means by which attention had been diverted. No doubt at
all.
None of which was really relevant, except as confirmation of his
suspicions. Not that much confirmation had been needed after he found
the incriminating speed dial, and especially after she fled the scene at
the first opportunity. Any lingering doubts he might have had had been
laid to rest by the fact that he'd had no further contact from the
Bureau in the ensuing 24 hours -- a sure sign that she had not felt it
safe to return to her job, or even to check in with Kersh.
He couldn't help but feel sorry for her. He had been in love with her
once, and he was pretty sure she had been in love with him. The
pressure brought to bear on her by the Consortium in their efforts to
flip her must have been unbearable. He remembered she'd always been
very proud of her independence, especially in dealing with things which
women stereotypically weren't good at, such as personal finances and
investments. Yeah, those bastards had known just where to hit her.
Unfortunately, the break Mulder had been hoping for had failed to
materialize. In retrospect he didn't know why he'd expected things to
change; by allowing Diana to escape he'd been letting his only real lead
slip between his fingers. And so another day had passed with nothing to
show for it. Even the Gunmen had failed to produce anything, beyond
Frohike's report on Diana's financial history. The encryption scheme
was taking longer to crack than Langly had hoped or expected.
"Mulder?"
He roused himself from his reverie and turned to see Tara standing at
the foot of the stairs, a book in her hand. He checked his watch, and
saw that it was almost midnight. Looking back at Tara, he said, "I
thought you'd gone to bed."
"I had," she said, shrugging slightly. "I couldn't sleep. Do you mind
if I sit up with you awhile?"
"Not at all," he replied, and waited while she crossed the room and sat
down on the sofa next to him. She was wearing the same robe she'd worn
the night of the 25th, and the same sensible flannel nightgown peeked
out beneath the hem. "Anything special keeping you up?"
She gnawed her lip for a moment, then nodded slowly and showed him the
book she'd been holding. He examined it briefly, and felt his eyebrows
raise slightly as he looked back up at her. "Catullus?"
She nodded again, her face very serious. "Catullus. I've always liked
him."
Mulder smiled slightly. "Catullus is pretty much the antithesis of what
we were talking about the other night, though. He was the king of Roman
erotic love poetry."
Her lips quirked. "Which is exactly the point. In any fair debate,
both sides of the argument deserve to be examined."
"What makes you think they haven't been in this case?" he asked, trying
to keep his voice light. He really didn't need to be delving into this
right now. The farther they got into this case, the more confused and
conflicted he was getting over how he felt about Scully. Still, Tara
had provided him considerable support, both emotional and otherwise, and
he didn't feel he could just shut her out.
"I'm a woman," she replied, still smiling. "Women know these things."
Mulder snorted, and she reached out and rested her hand on his. "Truly,
Mulder, I'm not trying to make you uncomfortable, and I'm not trying to
push you anyplace you don't want to go. Mostly, I just had a feeling
that our discussion the other night was a bit unbalanced,
intellectually. Do you mind?"
He shrugged. "Have at it. Which of Catullus' poems is your favorite?"
"I've always been partial to number five," she replied, and opened the
book. "But I don't have these committed to memory." And she commenced
to read to him:
"Let's live, my Lesbia, and let's make love
And let us value all the gossip of
Prudent old men as pennies. When the sun
Sets he can rise again; when we have done
For good and all with our one little light
We sleep forever in one dawnless night.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,
Another thousand, then a second hundred,
Then still another thousand, then a hundred,
Then, when our number's countless, then, my dear,
Scramble the abacus! So we won't fear
The evil eye of hate, for no one bad
must know how many kisses we have had."
She looked back up to him as she delivered the last line, and added,
"I've always thought that kissing was undervalued as an art form. Most
men -- and a lot of women -- seem to use it only as a means to an end.
But I feel kissing is an end in itself."
Despite himself, Mulder felt himself getting caught up in the
conversation, and he nodded. "I know what you mean. We all get so
absorbed by the expectations of others that it becomes almost
impossible, sometimes, to be who we really are." He raised an eyebrow
at her. "Of course, Catullus himself was conflicted on the subject.
I've always been rather partial to number sixty."
She snickered. "I knew you'd bring that one up; I've already got it
marked." She opened the book, and again she read:
"Were you raised by lions
On Libya's hostile cliffs,
Or were you born a bitch
From some dog's filthy cunt
To be so savage and so cruel
That you would scorn my pleading voice
When I need you most?"
She looked up at him again, and mischief danced in her eyes. "I hope
you didn't think you could shock me. I thought we'd settled that
already."
Mulder chuckled. "I guess maybe we did." He sat and looked at her
thoughtfully for a moment. "Are you sure you don't have an agenda
here?"
"Of course I have an agenda. But it's not to play matchmaker; I really
and truly meant what I said. And I've always hated people who try to
push others together." She made a face and shook her head. "I very
nearly didn't marry Bill because a couple of well-meaning friends kept
trying to hurry things along. I would never do that to you, or to
Dana."
"So what's the purpose of this?" he asked, gesturing at the book.
"Just what I said: I wanted to make sure that both sides of the
argument had been examined."
"That's it?"
"That's it," she replied, nodding.
He thought about it for a moment. He knew he was overly defensive when
it came to his relationship with Scully. So many people had jumped to
the wrong conclusion over the years that it had become just a little too
easy to assume the worst of even the most casual comment. And of course
his own defensiveness inevitably reinforced the very conclusions he
wanted to dispel.
And at this particular moment, due to the circumstances they were
facing, he was especially vulnerable, both to the assumptions of others
and to his own second guessing. The only thing he knew with certainty
was that he missed Scully terribly; he just didn't function very well
without her, and he knew it -- he had known it for a long time, long
before Antarctica. But that wasn't love -- not in the sense Catullus
had meant. Was it?
He shook his head. Everything was all tangled up inside, and the stress
of the last several days added to the lack of sleep was just making it
worse. One thing that had become abundantly clear since Scully had been
taken was that his feelings towards her were not as resolved as he had
believed them to be, and he knew it was going to be a bitch getting
himself settled again when he finally got her back. He felt a sudden
irritation at Tara, but quickly suppressed it. He knew she meant well,
and she really didn't have any way of knowing what a hornets' next she
was poking at.
"Mulder?" Her voice was soft and gentle, and when he looked up he saw
that she'd set the book aside. "Mulder, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to
upset you."
He looked at her levelly for a moment, then finally nodded. "It's
okay. I was just...thinking about something."
They sat staring at each other for a pair of minutes. Mulder couldn't
really think of anything further to say, and was considering suggesting
that she go on back to bed, when Frohike stepped into the room to
announce that they'd finally cracked the encryption scheme.
# # #
"This is very, very bad," Byers said without preamble as Mulder and Tara
stepped into the study at Frohike's heels a few minutes later. He
waited until everyone was situated around Bill's PC before continuing.
"As you are probably aware," the fussy little man continued, "for the
last six months or so Captain Scully has been assigned to an
interservice task force which has been examining downsizing and
outsourcing strategies at military facilities in the San Diego area."
He paused and waited for Mulder and Tara to nod. "The brief for this
task force is quite broad: Pretty much everything is on the table.
They've looked at everything from provision of commissary and PX
services to operational readiness issues to name it."
Again he paused, and this time Tara smiled slightly and said, "I
remember the commissary study. For awhile I thought Bill was going to
throttle the Donutland sales rep."
Byers nodded, then turned back to the computer. "The first ominous
tidbit we came across was a list of the permanent members of the task
force." He pointed to the screen, where a list of names and
organizations was displayed. "As you might expect, it's top-heavy with
DoD personnel, both uniformed and civilian. However, the task force
also has several representatives from the private sector -- mostly
contractors and consultants." He dropped his hand into his lap, and
looked directly at Mulder. "Including an executive vice president from
Roush Industries."
Mulder felt his eyes widen. "Roush? But they're a front for --"
"For the Consortium," Byers said flatly.
"THEY have a representative on this task force?"
"Actually," said Langly, "from a quick skim of the meeting synopses
Captain Scully included, it looks more like the Roush man is running the
task force. From his notes, it's pretty clear that Captain Scully
spotted it, too, although he thought it was a matter of simple graft and
influence, at least at first."
Mulder's gaze flicked briefly to Tara, trying to gauge her reaction, but
she was giving nothing away. He'd spent a couple of hours the night
before, after Diana had left, trying to explain to her about the
Consortium and its activities. He wasn't sure how much of it she'd
believed, but at least she hadn't laughed in his face.
He turned his gaze back to Byers. "Go on," he said.
The dapper little man nodded and stroked his van dyke. "About six weeks
ago, the task force took up the issue of handling and storage of weapons
of mass destruction. As it happens, one of the three main nuclear
weapons storage facilities on the west coast is right here at Miramar --
although the Navy, per their longstanding policy, refuses either to
confirm or deny that fact."
Again Byers paused, and Mulder felt a prickle of anticipation on the
back of his neck. He didn't like the way this conversation was going.
"Get on with it," he said, more harshly than he'd intended.
Byers nodded reluctantly. "One of the first steps taken by the task
force was to order an inventory of the existing nuclear weapon stockpile
at Miramar."
"Oh shit," Tara said, her voice flat and emotionless. For just an
instant Mulder wondered what had evoked that reaction, and then suddenly
it all fell into place and he knew. He glanced at Byers, and the other
man nodded slightly in confirmation.
"Broken arrow," the little man said softly. Broken arrow. Military
jargon for a lost or stolen atomic weapon.
For a long moment nobody spoke. At last, Mulder said, "How many?"
"Apparently just one," Frohike replied, his own voice as expressionless
as Tara's had been. "Only one Hiroshima out there looking for a place
to happen."
"Maybe it's a bookkeeping error?" Mulder didn't really believe it, but
he had to try.
"No," said Frohike, shaking his head. "They thought of that, and they
checked the inventory thoroughly. It's not a bookkeeping error."
"But why?" This time it was Tara, desperately denying.
Langly shrugged. "Logical progession," he said. "Ruby Ridge. Waco.
World Trade Center. Oklahoma City. Dallas. All intended to create an
atmosphere of terror, to justify further erosion of the Bill of
Rights." He shrugged again. "And this is the next logical step."
Again there was a moment of silence, as each person in the room seemed
to contemplate the consequences of that statement. Then Byers picked up
the story again.
"By sheer good fortune," he said, "Captain Scully was the chairman of
the subcommittee responsible for the inventory. What this means is that
the matter was immediately reported to competent authority, per the
DoD's protocol for such things. Unfortunately, the report seems to have
been suppressed."
"What do you mean?" asked Mulder. "How could it have been suppressed?"
Byers shook his head. "We don't know -- at least, not yet. All we have
to go on so far is the material provided by Captain Scully. But it's
very clear from reading his notes that while he reported the matter up
the chain of command -- as he should have -- those reports were stopped
somewhere along the way. It's not clear whether the base commander at
Miramar was ever informed, and it's certain that no one in Washington
knows about it."
"Jesus." Mulder tried to think of something more constructive to say,
but that was all he could come up with. "Jesus." After another moment
he looked back at Byers. "So what did Bill do?"
The little man stroked his beard again and nodded slightly. "At first,
based on his own notes and as we would have expected, he seems to have
pursued the matter through the chain of command. This report should
have gone right up the ladder on a priority basis, through the base
commander directly to the Navy Department and the Joint Chiefs, and then
to DoD, NSC and several other places. Possibly even to NEST, since the
missing weapon is within the United States proper."
"NEST?" Tara asked.
"Nuclear Emergency Search Team," Frohike explained. "That's the
government agency responsible for finding -- and if necessary disarming
-- unauthorized nuclear weapons in the United States. They were
established in the early 70s in response to the threat of nuclear
terrorism."
"When the captain didn't receive an immediate response to his initial
report," Byers went on, "he continued to pursue the matter through
channels." He gestured at the computer screen. "That's what those
dated files contain: Copies of his initial investigation and then of
the reports he made to his superiors. Six attempts in all, and each
more urgently worded than the last. Finally, when it became clear that
nothing was going to be done, he took the next logical step."
"He tried a back channel," Mulder said.
Byers nodded. "That's right. He contacted Colonel Casey in hopes of
breaking the logjam. That's what the 'Jiggs' file is: A formal report
of the situation through Casey to the Chairman of the JCS. It was
prepared on the 21st and 22nd of this month, and we have to assume that
he emailed it to Casey pretty much right away. And less than 24 hours
later Agent Scully and her brother disappeared, and Colonel Casey died
in a convenient accident."
Mulder sat quietly for a moment, trying to digest everything he had just
heard. Finally he said, "So what you're telling me is that the Navy has
misplaced an atom bomb." Byers nodded, his lips quirking slightly at
the word "misplaced". "You're further telling me that Bill knew about
it, but that when he tried to report the matter he was ignored."
Another nod, and Mulder took a deep breath. "And to put the icing on
the cake, Roush Industries, and by logical inference the Consortium, is
involved in this somehow."
"That about sums it up," Frohike said.
Once again silence fell in the room. This time it was Tara who broke
it. "So what do we do now?"
# # #
Residence of Bill and Tara Scully
December 31, 9:58 p.m.
"So what do we do now?"
The better part of 24 hours later Mulder still didn't have an answer to
that question. The five of them had sat up for another hour
brainstorming the situation, but had come up empty. There was no plan
of action; there were no further leads to follow up. All they knew was
what Bill Scully had known more than a week earlier, and they didn't
have even the resources or contacts he had possessed with which to
follow through.
Going through he Navy hierarchy was out of the question. Bill had tried
that route, and failed. If the Navy had not listened to one of their
own -- or had allowed him to be short-circuited -- they were even less
likely to listen to an outsider.
The Bureau was no more promising. The only person Mulder was authorized
to report to was Kersh, and that was clearly fruitless. Kersh was at
best an arrogant, hidebound bureaucrat, and at worst he was a Consortium
mole. In either case, he would not be receptive to wild reports of a
stolen nuclear weapon -- reports which the Navy would no doubt deny
uncategorically.
Senator Matheson might have been a possibility, had he not retired at
the end of the previous election cycle. Mulder had not had much contact
with the man in the last few years, but there had been some residual
goodwill between them. Unfortunately, Mulder knew that the Senator's
retirement "for reasons of health" had actually been prompted by his
diagnosis the previous year of Alzheimer's, and the disease had now
progressed to the point where he would not be taken seriously by anyone
that mattered -- even assuming that he retained the intellect to
understand the problem in the first place.
There was always Skinner, and Mulder had seriously considered calling
his former boss. But Skinner was now living under his own cloud as a
direct consequence of his previous support of Mulder and Scully and the
X-Files. Mulder would not have hesitated to call Skinner if that were
the only difficulty -- this obviously was a problem of greater moment
than one man's career. But Skinner's stock in the Bureau had fallen so
precipitously in the past six months that there seemed to be little
point. The man was now held in nearly as low esteem as Mulder himself,
and he would not be believed.
Which left them with no discernible options.
So once again Mulder lay on the sofa in Tara's living room and stared at
the ceiling. The Lone Gunmen continued to work the Internet, looking
for some lead as to the whereabouts of the missing atomic weapon,
although there was not much hope for that angle of attack, either. But
at least the Gunmen had something tangible to pursue. All that Mulder
had to occupy his time were his own doubts.
"Penny for your thoughts."
He dragged himself out of his reverie to see Tara standing in front of
the sofa, a sleeping Matthew tucked against her hip. "I'm not sure
they're worth that," he commented, swinging himself into a sitting
position to make room for her. He nodded at Matthew as she took her
seat. "Shouldn't he be in bed?"
Tara smiled slightly. "You sound like my father." She stroked the
boy's hair lightly. "But you're right; he should be in bed. I just
wanted to hold him for awhile. He's all I've got right now."
Mulder nodded, and the two of them sat silently on the sofa for a few
moments as he studied her face. What was it Scully had said about him,
all those years ago? "Mulder, you just keep unfolding like a flower."
She'd been razzing him about Phoebe at the time, but the remark had been
appropriate then, and seemed appropriate now. If someone had told him a
week ago that he was about to enter into a warm friendship with Tara
Scully, Mulder would have laughed in his face. Yet here he was.
He let his gaze drop to the child, now curled up asleep on Tara's lap.
He hadn't had much contact with children in his life, and now that he
finally took the time to notice he was surprised at how much the boy had
grown in the last year. Matthew had seemed like nothing much to write
home about when he'd been born almost exactly a year ago, but now he was
starting to look almost like he might one day grow up into a human
being.
Mulder had a sudden flashback to his previous visit to San Diego. Emily
Sim. Another bad time for Scully. She'd had so many of those in the
five years she'd been working with him. For just an instant Mulder felt
a flicker of the old guilt, and he held his breath, waiting for it to
come crashing down on him, but then it was gone again.
He glanced up to see Tara looking at him. "Something wrong?" she asked.
He shook his head and smiled slightly. "Just sittin' and thinkin'," he
drawled. Tara nodded at the comment, but her face remained solemn.
Scully would have smiled; if he'd hit her in just the right mood, she
might even have laughed.
God he missed her.
It was not lost on Mulder that the focus of the investigation -- such as
it was -- had changed. No longer were they concentrating on finding
Scully and Bill; now all their attention was on locating the missing
atom bomb. Which of course was as it should be, and both his partner
and her brother would have expected nothing less. But that didn't make
him feel any less bleak as he reflected on the situation and the
possible consequences of that change in focus.
At least he'd been getting a little more sleep in the last day or two.
He'd actually stretched out for more than six hours last night and this
morning, and if he wasn't exactly rested, at least the crushing
exhaustion he'd been feeling had receded a bit.
But he still wasn't getting anywhere close to a solution. Hell, he
hadn't made any real progress since he'd arrived. Every lead they'd got
had either come from someone else's industry, or had fallen into his lap
unbidden. Even Tara had made more contributions than he had; the most
productive thing HE had done had been to call the Lone Gunmen and dump
the computer problems in their lap. And even when Diana had handed
herself to him, virtually on a silver platter, he'd managed to let her
slip through his fingers through inattention.
Diana. What a disappointment that had been. She'd been very important
to him once, although that had been over for a long time. Still, his
relationship with her had largely predated his current state of
paranoia, and it had never occurred to him when she came traipsing back
into his life the previous spring that he might not be able to trust
her. It had been a serious shock to his worldview to find that she had
betrayed him, no matter what the motivation. Of course he had not
hesitated to attempt to use her Consortium association to his own
advantage, even knowing that he was putting her life at risk. So
perhaps he and Diana were not that different from each other after all.
"Mulder? Earth to Mulder."
He blinked and shook his head. "Sorry, Tara. Woolgathering." He was
trying to frame some flippant comment, to lighten his own mood as much
as anything, when there was a knock on the door.
He glanced at the clock and then raised his eyebrows at Tara. "Are you
expecting someone?" he asked. She shook her head. Mulder rose to his
feet, drawing his Sig Sauer as he did so. "Stay here." And he crossed
to the door and pulled it open.
It was Diana.
Mulder took two rapid steps back from the doorway and leveled his gun at
her. His gaze flicked rapidly past her to the street beyond, but she
seemed to be alone, and he focused his attention back on her.
For just a moment she stood in the doorway, and he noticed that she was
swaying slightly, as if she were drunk. His eyes narrowed as he took in
her appearance: Black rings under her eyes, and her clothes were mussed
and wrinkled, as if she'd been sleeping in them. She looked as run down
as Mulder felt.
Finally, she spoke. "I've come to give her back to you."
# # #
Southbound on Route 163, San Diego, CA
10:34 p.m.
"Why, Diana?"
Mulder sat in the cramped back seat of Tara's Saturn, his Sig Sauer
trained on Diana's head. She sat in the front passenger seat, while
Tara drove. Mulder hadn't been at all surprised when Tara insisted on
coming along, and only mildly surprised that Frohike had agreed to take
care of Matthew for her. The arrangement did have its advantages: It
allowed him to watch Diana while someone he trusted drove the car.
A brief, bitter interrogation had established to Mulder's satisfaction
that Diana knew nothing of the missing atom bomb. In fact, she gave
every appearance of shocked disbelief when he told her about it. Part
of his mind was screaming at him that he was a fool to trust her, and
risk being burned again, but another part was just as firm in its
desperate need to be doing SOMETHING towards resolving the situation.
The silence stretched on, and Mulder began to doubt whether Diana had
heard his question. She sat calmly in her seat, staring at the highway
ahead of them, not moving at all, barely breathing. Mulder was just
beginning to wonder if he should repeat the question when she started to
speak.
"I never stopped being in love with you." Her voice was quiet,
meditative. "Even after that last, horrible fight; even after all those
years away from you, I never stopped loving you."
She fell silent again for a moment, and continued to stare out at the
highway. Then: "They came to me last winter, right after the first of
the year. I assume that Frohike found out about my money problems."
She turned her head to look at him, seeming to want confirmation.
Mulder nodded, and she turned back to face the front again.
"The money was only part of it, though," she went on. "If it had been
only the money, I would have turned them down flat. Although I have to
admit that having those debts cleared was a powerful incentive. They
always use both the carrot AND the stick. I think you know that."
Again she turned to look at him; again he nodded. And this time she did
not look away.
She stared at him steadily for a moment; finally she closed her eyes and
swallowed. "It was the videos that really did it."
She fell silent again, and this time she did not seem to be inclined to
go on. At last, Mulder said, "Videos?"
She nodded, and a look of pain crossed her features. "Videos. Videos
of you...and her."
Mulder felt a shock run through his system. She couldn't possibly mean
what it sounded like she meant. "Diana, I --"
"Save it, Fox," she said, bitterness creeping into her voice. "I know I
was taken in; I figured it out almost as soon as I saw the two of you
together. But they did such a good job of faking it, and I'm certain it
was your apartment where they did the taping. I'd know that sofa
anywhere. That part HAD to be real, even if the...the lovemaking
wasn't. But I was so shocked, so...so jealous that I couldn't even see
straight. All I could see was you, and her...the things you were doing
together. The things you said. The things about me."
Mulder felt his eyes widen. "Diana, I swear to god...I never said a
word about you to Scully. She didn't even know you existed until that
first briefing. I would never --"
"Just shut up, Fox, okay?" she said sharply, pain and anger struggling
for ascendancy in her voice. "I already told you I figured that out.
And if I'd been able to see past my rage and humiliation, I would have
known it when they first showed me the tapes. But I couldn't. And so I
agreed to work with them, and by the time I realized my mistake I was in
so deep that I couldn't get out."
For a pair of minutes there was silence in the car. Mulder glanced
briefly at Tara, but she was giving nothing away, simply clutching the
steering wheel and staring out to the front, apparently oblivious to the
conversation taking place next to her. But Mulder knew that she had to
be hearing every word.
"Fox, I'm so sorry." He shifted his gaze back to Diana, and now there
were tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes. "I should have known
better. I really should have. And it wasn't the sex, it truly wasn't.
Oh, that hurt, and I won't deny it, but it was none of my business, even
if it had been real. It was the things you said...the things they made
it seem like you said, while you were lying together. Cruel, hateful
things. And she laughed when you said them."
"I'm sorry, Diana." Mulder knew it was hopelessly inadequate, and not
even really appropriate, but it was all that he could think of to say.
Diana nodded slightly, and managed a tiny little smile. "Actually, it
was the laughing -- her laughing -- that finally tipped me off that I'd
been hoaxed." She shook her head. "Do you know that she never laughs?
Never. She barely even smiles. Once I realized that, I knew that the
tapes had been faked. But by then it was too late."
Once again silence fell in the car, and more miles fled behind them.
And after awhile Diana turned around and faced to the front, and the
only sound was the tires whispering against the pavement.
# # #
Harbor Drive Warehouse District, San Diego, CA
10:49 p.m.
At length the car rolled to a halt across the street from the
nondescript warehouse which Diana had directed them to. For the past
quarter mile, signs had proudly announced that this would one day be the
site of the new San Diego Padres baseball stadium. The streets were
dark and silent, and the building itself gave every appearance of being
unoccupied.
For several minutes Mulder and the two women sat silently, watching the
building. Finally, Mulder said, "Are you sure this is it, Diana? It
seems awfully quiet."
She shrugged. "This is where they were four days ago. Of course, they
could easily have been moved."
Mulder nodded, and they sat in silence for another pair of minutes.
Scully and Bill could have been moved, and of course if Diana was now
playing straight with him she would have no way of knowing about that.
On the other hand, there was the clear possibility that this was all a
trap of some sort, designed to lure them to an isolated area where he
and Tara could be disposed of quietly.
But it didn't FEEL like a trap; it felt like the truth. And Scully WAS
nearby; he could almost feel her presence. Of course, that didn't prove
anything; even if she was here, it could still be a trap -- and Scully
herself would no doubt snort in derision if he were to try to explain to
her the feeling of PRESENCE he was having at the moment.
"Bill's here," Tara said quietly.
Mulder shifted his gaze to her, and saw that she had turned in her seat
and was looking back at him with large, luminous eyes. He studied her
face for a moment, looking for doubt or uncertainty and finding none.
Finally, he nodded slightly. "Let's do it, then."
The side entrance which Diana led them to was chained and padlocked, but
the tire iron from Tara's Saturn made short work of that obstacle. The
interior of the warehouse was as silent and deserted as the street had
been. The only light came from Mulder's flashlight; the only sound was
their own footsteps as they proceeded along a narrow corridor, Diana
still in the lead. And with each step he took the sense of Scully's
presence grew stronger in Mulder's mind.
At last they came to the end of the hallway and passed through another
doorway, to find themselves standing along one side of a vast room. A
handful of shipping crates were scattered across the floor, seemingly
placed at random, but otherwise the room appeared to be empty, although
it was hard to be certain since the far wall was lost in the gloom.
Diana stepped off into the darkness, but Mulder grabbed her elbow.
"Just a minute," he said. "Where, exactly, are we going?"
"There's a staircase along the far side," Diana said. "We go up the
stairs and along a catwalk to a small group of offices. When I was here
on Sunday, Agent Scully and her brother were being kept in one of the
offices."
He looked at her narrowly for a moment. From her body language and
facial expression he was almost sure she was telling the truth, and
there was no denying his own sixth sense that Scully was nearby. At the
same time, all of his professional instincts were warning him that
something was wrong. The building was too empty, too quiet. If
prisoners were being kept here, shouldn't there be SOME sort of guard?
Diana seemed to read his mind, as she sighed and said, "I don't know
what's going on any more than you do, Fox. There never were very many
people here, but there should have been someone watching the door where
we entered the building. At least, there was on Sunday." Her lips
quirked slightly. "It is New Year's Eve. Maybe they're all off
celebrating."
Mulder considered her words for a minute. He was pretty certain she was
still telling the truth, but that didn't make the situation any more
explicable. Without taking his eyes off of Diana, he said, "Tara? What
do you think?"
After the briefest of hesitations, Tara said, "I don't know, Mulder. I
don't trust her." Another pause. "But Bill is here. Of that I'm
certain."
Mulder stood quietly for another moment or two, weighing the situation,
but he really didn't have much in the way of alternatives. He could
either turn back, and give up the one lead he had in this case, or he
could proceed. At last he nodded to Diana. "Lead on."
The staircase she led them to was old and rickety. It appeared to be
made of cast iron, and was bolted to the wall almost as if it had been
an afterthought. Mulder shone his light up the stairs, but the top
remained hidden in darkness. He felt a prickling on the back of his
neck, and shifted the flashlight to his left hand and drew his gun with
his right.
With Diana still in the lead, they proceeded to climb the stairs. The
structure shivered with each step, and Mulder had visions of the whole
thing collapsing under their weight. And he was only three steps from
the top when that vision materialized.
It started with a low, creaking groan, and for three vital seconds
Mulder froze as the surface shifted beneath his feet. He was aware of
Tara and Diana ahead of him on the stairs scrambling for the safety of
the landing, and finally his own reflexes kicked in, but it was too
late; the creaking groan had built to a roar and a clatter of metal and
he was falling....
After an unmeasured interval, Mulder gradually became aware of himself
again. He was lying on the cold concrete floor of the warehouse in
almost total darkness, the faint glow of his miraculously unbroken
flashlight just visible about twenty feet away. For a moment all he
could do was lie there as flashes and sparkles danced before his eyes.
He took cautious inventory, and decided that nothing was broken, and
finally he struggled to a sitting position.
Instantly he regretted it. Pain lanced through his head like a
lightning bolt, and the room seemed to dive and swoop around him. His
breathing came in short, sharp gasps, and his heart pounded in his
chest. There was a ringing in his ears, and for a moment the darkness
seemed to close in on him again....
"Mulder!" Tara's voice. Grimly, Mulder fought to open his eyes, and
even as he did so he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Mulder! Are you
okay?"
His eyes flickered open, and he saw Tara kneeling in front of him.
Diana stood back a few feet, now holding his flashlight. Idly, he
wondered where his gun had gotten to. He thought he'd been holding it
when he fell, but somehow it didn't seem terribly important. Nothing
seemed important. He felt strangely detached, and all he really wanted
to do was sleep....
"Mulder!"
Again she was shaking his shoulder, and reluctantly he opened his eyes
again. Tara was staring at him, her face only a few inches from his
own. She really had a very lovely face; he wondered why he'd never
noticed that before. Bill sure knew how to pick 'em....
"Mulder! Dammit, pay attention to me!"
With a supreme effort of will, Mulder focused his attention on Tara, and
tried to listen to her words. "S-sorry," he said. "Guess I'm a little
groggy."
She continued to peer at him in the gloom. "More than a little, I'd
say."
"H-how'd...you get down here?"
"Diana found another stairway -- a little more solid that that one,
thank God." Tara held up a finger in front of his face and moved it
steadily back and forth. Automatically, Mulder tried to track the
finger with his eyes, but the effort made him dizzy and nauseous and he
had to stop and swallow carefully. Tara nodded grimly. "I think you've
got a concussion."
Mulder tried to concentrate on what she'd just said. Concussion. Yeah,
that made a lot of sense. He'd had one or two of those before, and he
remembered what it felt like: Pretty much the way he was feeling right
now. He also remembered that the way to deal with it was to put the
feelings away in a box and try to focus on something concrete and
immediate.
"Did you...." His voice trailed off and he had to swallow again. "Did
you find them?"
Tara shook her head. "Not yet. We didn't look. We had to find you,
make sure you were okay." Her lips quirked slightly. "Besides, you had
the only flashlight." She hesitated, then said, "Do you think you're
going to be able to manage? Or should we get you to a doctor? A head
injury is nothing to fool around with."
Mulder shook his head sharply, and winced as a fresh jolt of pain shot
through his head. "No," he said. "No doctors. Not until we find
Scully and Bill." He took a deep breath and started to climb to his
feet.
Without Tara's help he would never have made it, and even so it was a
near thing. At last, though, he was standing on his own two feet,
albeit Tara was supporting a considerable portion of his weight. The
pounding in his head had intensified still further, and the dizziness
had returned with a vengeance, but at least he was upright. He stood as
still as he could, trying to catch his breath and waiting for the room
to stop spinning.
At last he felt he'd regained his equilibrium, and took a few
experimental steps away from Tara. On the third or fourth step he
staggered and his knees buckled, and he found himself leaning up against
a wall and gasping for breath. He heard footsteps approaching, and then
Tara was holding him up again, while Diana stood a few feet in front of
him shining the light at him.
He winced and ducked his head, squinching his eyes shut. "Jesus," he
gasped. "Get that fucking light out of my eyes!" He felt like he was
going to vomit, and it was only by the barest of margins that he managed
to avoid it, turning away from the light and momentarily leaning his
forehead against the wall.
Tara said, "Mulder, I really think --"
"Just give me a minute," he snapped. He took a deep breath, and then
another, and then slowly and carefully he pushed himself away from the
wall and opened his eyes again. His vision was blurry, and he was
seeing double, but he could dimly make out the wall a foot or two in
front of him. As his eyes slowly came back into focus, he realized he
was actually standing in front of a door, and that there was a yellow
sign of some sort hanging on it. Yellow with a black trefoil shape on
it. It looked vaguely familiar....
"Shit!" He blinked hard, and resisted the urge to shake his head.
"Diana! Shine the light over here!" An instant later the area in front
of him was lit up, and he swore again, and he heard Tara gasp.
"Mulder?" Her voice sounded fearful and uncertain. "Isn't that the
radiation hazard symbol?"
"Yes." He paused for another deep breath. "Yes it is. We may just
have found...." His voice trailed off; he just could make himself say
the words. Besides, it couldn't REALLY be the bomb; it couldn't
possibly be that easy. It was probably a storeroom for radioactive
materials, or something similar. But they had to check; they couldn't
just walk away from the opportunity of solving this part of the puzzle,
no matter how remote the chance.
Mulder reached out and tried the doorknob, but it was locked. Of
course. He considered the matter for just a moment. There was a
solution; there had to be a solution, if only he could think of it....
Then he had it. "Diana? Did you pick up my gun, too?" He wanted to
turn and look at her, but he couldn't tear his eyes away from the
radiation warning. It had him mesmerized; it was like a snake, coiled
and ready to strike.
"Yes." He heard her footsteps approaching, and he sidled off to one
side. "Shoot the lock."
"Fox?"
"Shoot it!"
The gun roared once, twice, three times, and Mulder winced as the sound
assaulted his ears and seemed to drive a hot spike directly into his
brain. On the fourth shot the lock flew apart, and he fought down
another wave of nausea as he moved back in front of the door and pushed
it open. He stepped across the threshold and fumbled for the light
switch, and in another instant the room was flooded with light. He
blinked back tears and tried to ignore the agony in his head as he
peered into the room.
It was the bomb.
It had to be.
An off-white, cylindrical object, perhaps fifteen feet long and five in
diameter, resting on its side in an elaborate laticework cradle. As he
stepped closer he saw that it bore U.S. Navy markings, and what appeared
to be a serial number was stenciled on the side.
It was the bomb.
He was still digesting the scene in front of him when his cell phone
shrilled. For a moment he ignored it, all of his attention focused on
the cylinder. Then the phone sounded again, and he drew it from his
pocket and punched the connect button.
"Mulder."
"Mulder, this is Byers." The dapper little man's voice sounded strained
and harsh. "I think we've got a problem."
"No shit," Mulder replied, still staring at the bomb.
Byers continued, "We finally managed to hack into Colonel Casey's
Pentagon email account, and we found he'd uncovered a lot more than we
thought. It turns out --"
"That the bomb is right here in San Diego," Mulder finished.
There was a moment of silence on the other end. Then: "How did you
know?"
"Because I'm standing about five feet in front of it."
Another silence, longer than the last. Finally, Byers breathed,
"Jesus." Pause. "Mulder, you've got to get out of there, and I'm not
kidding. If the information Casey dug up is correct, that thing's set
to go off at midnight." Byers paused again, as if waiting for a
response, but Mulder didn't say anything. "Mulder? Did you hear me?"
"I heard you."
"Then get your ass out of there! Frohike's packing up Matthew as we
speak; we're about to hit the road." Pause. "Mulder? Are you
listening to me? You've only got about 40 minutes; you don't have any
time to waste!"
Mulder stood stock still, eyes still fixed on the bomb, trying to absorb
what Byers was telling him. Forty minutes. In forty minutes they could
put at least thirty miles between themselves and ground zero. But would
even that be enough? Christ, he didn't even know what the weapon's
yield was. It might not be too large; he vaguely recalled that
multi-megaton weapons had fallen into disfavor as the accuracy of the
delivery systems increased. Yeah, not too large -- maybe it was only
big enough to destroy a SMALL city.
He couldn't just turn and run, could he? Even if he and Tara and Diana
managed to get outside the blast radius, that still left more than two
million people exposed and unprotected, Scully and her brother among
them. He closed his eyes and tried to think. Byers was babbling in his
ear again, and precious seconds were trickling away, but there had to be
a solution; there had to be.
Forty minutes.
Dammit! Why couldn't Diana have come back sooner? Even a few hours
sooner, and there would have been time to issue a warning, start an
evacuation, get someone down here who knew what they were doing.
Someone with the technical know-how to deal with --
<>
"Byers, let me talk to Langly."
"Mulder? We don't have time for --"
"Langly. Get him."
There was a brief silence on the other end, then the blond man came on
the phone. "Yeah, Mulder?"
"Langly, do you know anything about nuclear weapons?"
There was another moment of silence, and Mulder could almost hear the
wheels spinning in the other man's head. Finally: "Yes."
"Enough to disarm one?"
No hesitation this time. "Yes."
"Do you think you could walk me through it in the time we have left?"
"Maybe. But Mulder, you'd have to have the right tools. It's not
something you can do barehanded, or even with the crap most people have
in their basement workshops."
For the first time since stepping through the doorway, Mulder forced his
eyes away from the bomb and looked around. It was a medium sized room,
perhaps 20 by 20, with bare concrete walls and a concrete floor. Other
than the bomb, resting in its cradle, the only thing in the room was a
storage cabinet in the far corner, perhaps five feet high. He breathed
a prayer. Please, let it be what he hoped it was.
"Just a sec, Langly."
Mulder had actually forgotten how ill he was feeling, but as he moved
towards the cabinet fresh waves of pain and nausea went racing through
his head and his body. The room started spinning again, and more
sparkles of light appeared before his eyes. He gritted his teeth and
once again fought down the urge to vomit, and somehow he made it over
the cabinet, but then he didn't have the strength to do anything but
lean up against it, eyes closed and breathing heavily.
"Mulder?" Tara's voice again. Shit. He'd completely forgotten about
the two women. He forced his eyes open and turned to look at them.
"Tara," he gasped. "Diana. Get the fuck out of here." He paused again
to try to catch his breath.
"Mulder? What the hell?"
He waved helplessly in the general direction of the bomb. "Tara...It's
set to blow. Midnight."
He saw her eyes go big and round, and she took a step back from him.
"Matthew --"
Mulder shook his head, then closed his eyes again as more waves of agony
assaulted him. Dammit! "S'okay," he managed to stutter out. "S'okay.
The Gunmen...Gunmen're taking Matthew. He'll be okay." God, he hoped
he was right. He hoped his friends could drive far enough, fast enough,
to salvage something from this miserable situation.
He heard a distant chattering coming from somewhere, and after a moment
he realized it was his cell phone. Langly. Right. He held it up to
his ear again.
"S-sorry, Langly," he muttered. "You said you need tools." He pushed
himself back a step or two from the cabinet and pulled it open, and for
once luck seemed to be on his side as he was confronted by rack after
rack of tools, some familiar and others not, and each carefully labeled
as it hung on a hook or sat on a shelf. He squinted against the
blossoming sparkles that danced before his eyes, and started reading the
labels into his cell phone.
"Okay, Mulder." Langly's voice was calm and professional. "It sounds
like you've got what you need. Now the first thing we're going to have
to do is take the cover plate off. To do that..."
Mulder tried to concentrate on his friend's words, but it just wasn't
working. The room was spinning again, and the sparkling in his eyes had
gotten so strong he could barely see anything else. Without quite
knowing how it had happened, he found himself on his hands and knees,
and his cell phone was skittering away across the concrete floor,
Langly's voice still chattering from the receiver. He tried to crawl
after it, but suddenly his stomach heaved, and this time he couldn't
keep himself from vomiting, over and over and over. Then he was lying
on the floor on his belly, still puking, and the side of his face was
wet and sticky. He couldn't even see the cell phone anymore, it was out
of his line of vision, and anyway it was dark in the room even though he
was sure he'd turned the lights on but he just couldn't see he couldn't
keep his eyes open....
And then he heard a woman's voice, very far away, as if it was coming
from the end of a long, long tunnel. "Langly? This is Tara Scully.
Tell me what I need to do."
Everything went black.
# # #
UCSD Medical Center
January 1, 1:38 p.m.
Mulder's first sensation was one of pain: A dull throbbing pain,
pulsing gently in his head and running down his neck to his upper back.
A familiar pain, almost a friendly pain; a pain that evoked strange,
chaotic memories -- memories of falling, of stumbling in the darkness,
of desperately trying to focus on...something. And then suddenly he
remembered.
Scully and her brother, missing. The endless days of worry and tedium.
The agony of not knowing. The mounting terror as the Consortium's plan
was unearthed. Diana's betrayal and redemption. The desperate journey
to the waterfront in the middle of the night. The atom bomb.
Scully.
His eyes fluttered open, and even as the overhead acoustic tiles came
into focus he realized that he was lying in a hospital bed. He became
aware of more: The soft whisper of a heating duct; the quiet ticking of
a clock; the distant murmur of voices. And then suddenly one of the
voices became louder.
"Good morning sleepyhead."
He shifted his eyes in the direction of the voice, and saw Tara standing
at the foot of his bed. Bill was standing next to her, his arm around
her shoulders, and they both were smiling.
Mulder raised his eyebrows and smiled back at them weakly. "Morning?"
"Well, actually it's early afternoon," she replied.
"But what's a few hours among friends?" Bill added with a light chuckle.
Mulder laughed in return, then winced as the throbbing in his head
became slightly worse. His eyes watered for a moment, and he held
still, waiting to see if the nausea of the night before would return,
but it didn't. His vision cleared, and he looked back at Bill and
Tara. "I take it the bomb...didn't?"
"No, it didn't," Bill replied, still smiling.
"Eight seconds to spare," Tara added, her own smile spreading into a
full-fledged grin. "It was hardly even exciting."
Mulder snorted. "I think you guys have seen THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN once
too often."
Tara laughed out loud and her eyes sparkled as she leaned into her
husband. "Hey, Mulder, give me a break. I've been waiting my whole
life for a chance to deliver a line like that!"
Mulder laughed with her despite the pain, then suddenly sobered.
Scully. They hadn't said anything about Scully. Bill was here, and he
and Tara were both smiling and happy, so surely she was okay, but
still....
"She's fine, Mulder," Bill said, seeming to read his thoughts. "She
just stepped out for a few minutes to give your doctor the third degree,
but she'll be right back. And she's going to be pissed as hell that you
had the nerve to wake up while she was out of the room." He shook his
head in mock disgust. "Sometimes I wonder how she manages to put up
with you."
"Well I'm just as glad that she isn't here," Tara said, stepping away
from her husband and moving up to the head of the bed. "It gives me the
chance to deliver this in private." Mulder noticed for the first time
that Tara had a small, gayly-wrapped package tucked under her right
arm. Now she pulled it out and handed it to Mulder.
Again he raised his eyebrows. "What's this?"
"A get well present," she replied, still smiling.
Mulder hefted the object in his hand for a moment, and gingerly felt its
dimensions. It seemed to be a book -- or perhaps two books; he wasn't
quite sure. But what books would Tara be giving him? And then suddenly
he knew, and he felt an embarrassed smile creep across his face.
"Go ahead, Mulder, open it," she said. "Dana will be back any minute."
Chuckling and shaking his head, Mulder quickly tore open the package,
and was unsurprised to find himself the proud new owner of Tara Scully's
copies of The Symposium and The Collected Poems of Catullus. He stared
down at the volumes for a moment, then raised his eyes to look at Tara
again. Her smile had broadened, and now amusement danced in her eyes.
"Check the inscriptions," she suggested.
Mulder dropped his gaze to the books again, and after a brief hesitation
he flipped open the book by Plato. There on the inside of the front
cover, in Tara's elegant, feminine script, were the words, "To thine own
self be true. Tara Scully, January 1, 1999."
He felt his eyebrows rising again, and looking back up at Tara he saw
that her expression had suddenly turned serious. "I really did mean
everything I said, Mulder," she said softly. "Now look at the other
one."
Once more he looked down at the books, and this time he opened the book
of poetry. Here the inscription had been written in Bill's neat,
methodical handwriting: "What she said."
Mulder smiled.
# # #
Residence of Bill and Tara Scully
9:58 p.m. - EPILOGUE
Dana Scully paused in the doorway between the dining room and the living
room and looked at her partner for a moment. He was stretched out on
the sofa in his customary sprawl, arms and legs everywhere. The tape
was already in the VCR, ready to go, and he was playing idly with the
remote control.
For just an instant she indulged herself in the small, affectionate
smile that she never allowed Mulder to see. He had been so solicitous
to her since he'd regained consciousness that afternoon. It was funny,
really, and rather sweet; you'd almost think that SHE had been the one
to take a knock on the head, and for awhile she'd thought she might have
to draw her gun on him to get him to lie still until his doctor arrived
to clear him for discharge. He was such a pain in the ass when he was
hurt.
She wouldn't have it any other way.
"We gonna watch this movie, or are you just going to stand there staring
at me all night?"
Scully chuckled slightly and moved over to the sofa as Mulder rearranged
himself to make room for her. She handed him the bowl of popcorn and
one of the bottles of root beer, and then sat down next to him and
stretched out her feet to rest them on the coffee table.
Mulder twisted the cap off his soda and took a deep swig, then grimaced
slightly. "You know, I still think I could have had a Rolling Rock."
"Not tonight, Mulder," she said. "Alcohol and head injuries don't mix;
you know that. Besides, I thought you LIKED root beer."
"I do," he replied. "But you can get too much of anything." He took
another hit from his bottle, then picked up the remote control again and
pushed PLAY.
For a few minutes the two partners sat together on the sofa and watched
the opening credits of DINOSAURUS! scroll across the screen. A
construction company was using underwater explosives to dredge out the
harbor of a tropical island, and the project foreman was developing a
romantic interest in the lead actress. Of course.
Eyes fixed on the screen, Scully twisted the top off of her own bottle
of root beer and took a short sip, then grabbed a handful of popcorn and
stuffed it into her mouth. God, it tasted good. She couldn't believe
how good it tasted. Everything was perfect; everything was wonderful.
She took another handful of popcorn, and followed it up with some more
root beer.
"Scully, do you love me?"
She stopped in mid swig and looked up at her partner in surprise. Where
the hell had THAT come from? Not that it mattered; she could never lie
to him. "Of course I love you, Mulder. Didn't you know that?"
He was looking down at her, his expression very sober and serious. He
nodded slightly, and replied, "I guess I did." He paused, then asked,
"Just exactly what kind of love are we talking about here?"
She hesitated for just an instant, then shrugged and gave the only
answer that she could: "Whatever kind of love we need it to be."
For a moment Mulder seemed to study her face, and she looked back at him
curiously, waiting to see what he was going to do. Finally he nodded
again, and said, "That's a good answer, Scully. That's a very good
answer." Then he turned his attention back to the TV screen, and after
another moment Scully did likewise, and for a pair of minutes they
watched the movie together in silence.
"You know," her partner commented after awhile, "we must have seen this
movie at least fourteen times. At LEAST fourteen times." He glanced
down at her again and smiled slightly. "Not that I'm complaining, mind
you. Some things just get better with time."
"I guess that's true," she said. And after that they were quiet, and
the two friends sat together on the sofa, eating popcorn, drinking root
beer, and watching television, far into the night.
Fini
--
It's not that I'm slipping in my opinion of Fox Mulder. I've decided
that if my sister is going to work in the FBI, I would rather have him
by her side than about 90 percent of the guys I could name. He's laid
down his life for her, I appreciate that in a prick.
--Bill Scully, jr., "By Her Side: That Voice" by Vickie Moseley